Podcast

Transcript

Josh (00:00)

All right, everyone, welcome back to another episode of the 5 in 20 podcast where you know how we do it, 5 or so questions in 20 something minutes by Remarkable Academic Foods. I'm your host, Joshua Miller, and we are going to talk about some things to get some creative juices flowing with you. That's right. We're going into marketing, branding, storytelling, all that and more with the focus on colleges and universities. However, you know how I am with collaboration, cross collaboration doesn't mean you can't get value out of it. If it doesn't mean you can't get value out of it if you're not in that segment.

A little foreshadowing hint hint on a possible episode in the future. So pleased to call these my friends, Chief Creative Officer Eric Haviland and Creative Director Abby Pachati, both from the FUZE that is the FUZE, F -U -Z -E. No, I'm not saying F -U, all right? It is F as in Frank, U as in universal, Z -E, if you haven't heard of them. And we're gonna get started on these creative things that is gonna be all about.

Erik | FUZE (00:48)

haha

Josh (00:56)

telling about your program to your students, their parents, administrators, your peers, all that and more. You gotta get that information out there. So, so much value coming your way from these two and make sure you stick around for the value they're gonna drop towards you.

Josh (01:25)

So thank you again for taking the time to be here.

Erik | FUZE (01:28)

Absolutely, yeah. Thanks for having us. Thanks. We've been watching, watching your show for a little while now, of course. And it's, yeah, it's a privilege to be on.

Josh (01:37)

Awesome, thanks. And to get things started, icebreaker, I've talked about guilty pleasure snack or all that kind of food in the past quite a bit, but I'm gonna go back to your college days. What was your favorite meal or snack from your college days? That's for both of you.

Abby Paciotti | FUZE (01:53)

Why? I'm closer to that than you are? Just by a little bit.

Erik | FUZE (01:55)

Why don't you tackle it first?

Josh (01:59)

Hahaha.

Erik | FUZE (01:59)

Yeah, that's a long time ago.

Abby Paciotti | FUZE (02:04)

Okay, I'm just gonna say the first thing that came to mind, which was Ben and Jerry's ice cream from the C-Store the Pints. And I ate the whole thing.

Josh (02:12)

my goodness, you have no idea how many times Ben and Jerry's has come up on this when I talk about guilty pleasure. So no stranger to this podcast. What about you,

Erik | FUZE (02:27)

man, tell you, for me, it's always been pizza. I just, I can't get enough of it. I'm always looking for the perfect slice. You know, it doesn't really matter what city I'm in. I'm always like Googling and you know, getting on the Dave Portnoy's app and like, you know, one bite and trying to like find like the best slice, the best local slice.

Josh (02:30)

Mm.

Cool. Well, again, let's talk about telling the story of these programs, the marketing, the branding, all that behind it. But let's start with the marketing aspect of it, if you don't mind. So obviously you guys do a lot. And if you don't mind, actually, if you want to tell people what is The Fuze what's all that you can do to bring things to their help them, their programs out.

Erik | FUZE (02:52)

Sure thing. Yeah, yeah. So we are a full service creative agency. We've also an integrated marketing firm. you know, we help end users, operators, also those that are in the food service industry with, you know, activating their marketing, developing their creative assets, working on their brand messaging, working on video productions and photography, environmental branding, you name it. So it's a little bit of everything across the board. We've been around in excess of 20 years now and have gone through a few iterations. But really we kind of found our tribe in the food service community and that's where we like to work these days. Abby heads up a lot of the creative side of things, whether that's web design and development or branding for universities or, you know, concepts, branded concept work and things like that. And then I head up more on the marketing strategy side and then also the video production piece where I...

I get to really still enjoy playing and heading out into the field and telling some great stories of friends and clients out there.

Josh (04:11)

Love it. I've been, I it's like we've known each other so much longer than we have, but I mean, just you guys do so much and you do it all so well and it's so appreciated. But let's talk about in terms of colleges and universities, the students, it's a different demographic, obviously. How do you approach that differently when you're targeting them versus other segments?

Abby Paciotti | FUZE (04:14)

Okay.

Erik | FUZE (04:16)

You know, I think it's, you know, one of the things that we're seeing these days is that, you know, the best way to tell a good story through a brand is I think, developing really quality brand loyalty. And that could be in a, it could be a food service manufacturer. It might be, yeah, college, university. It might be somebody in the consulting space, but really I think it's fostering and building good community.

And we're seeing that, I think, across the board in both on campus as directors really try to build and add inherent value into what they're offering their campus community, what they're offering their students, how they're trying to cultivate and nurture spaces where they can come together collectively and really feel like they're part of something a little bit bigger than themselves. It's not even just about the food anymore, right? It's about culturing, it's about creating that culture and nurturing that culture kind of along the way. And I think that's where we really try to help design brands and spaces, come up with concept work where it just really amplifies the brand message, but it also establishes a deep rooted loyalty. I think that just transcends like traditional transactional relationships.

Josh (05:46)

so social media probably drives a lot of the engagement for campus dining programs. What role does that play in the campus dining community?

Abby Paciotti | FUZE (05:58)

I think you would be correct in saying that that's probably the number one way that they communicate other than actually physically within the space. So we're talking about like, table tents, signage, know, plasma screen, things like that in the space. We do a lot of graphics and stuff for that. But outside of that, other than events and specific events that they do, social media is huge. we do a lot of social media graphic template work that then we can hand off to those dining directors and they can have their student help, help them in facilitating those graphics and putting them out on a daily basis. So we make sure everything is within the brand and follows what we've laid out for the overarching concept of everything. And then they take that and apply it to the day to day.

Josh (06:53)

love it. you're giving them something, you're turning over and saying, Hey, take this. We've already did the hard part. Now you have to just do the easy part, which anyone can do, including a student and get your story out there continuously. So you don't have to depend on a bottleneck of, someone that has to do everything from A through Z every time. That's very cool.

Abby Paciotti | FUZE (06:54)

Right. And it gives us, it gives us and them the ability to ensure that, you know, the specific rules of the brand for the university and for the dining unit are followed. Right. Like you don't have someone out there just doing X, Y, Z and cause they think it looks cool.

Josh (07:34)

Nice. And so you both have said branding a lot and it's so important. So let's talk about that. What are the elements that are essential in developing a strong food service brand identity on a campus?

Abby Paciotti | FUZE (07:48)

going into a university, some of it is given to you, right? Because the university already has some semblance of standards in place. Some of them are more robust than others. It just depends on the university. So there's always usually a starting place. But I think under whatever parameters are already developed, figuring out what that core brand is going to look like and then building off of it, right? So ensuring that everything stays consistent and is recognizable, that's important, especially when things are changing, like when we're going from, you know, contract to sell off and now we need to inform and educate the student body that has already been there, you know, current students that things are changing and what's changing and why it's changing so being consistent with that brand is super important. so, I mean, I think a strong, logo or identity mark, what, whatever that may be for the dining program and the building everything off of that.

Erik | FUZE (08:53)

Yeah. And I would just also add in that, you know, as we're looking at, you know, how we even get to that visual brand, you know, we're incorporating the mission, the values, the culture, all of that. It's the branding. It's. yeah. I mean, it's the, you know, it's the heartbeat of the business, right? I mean, you know, we've got to make sure that it all points back to what the vision is of the university or of the corporation or whoever it is that we're working with at any given time.

Josh (09:04)

Yeah, you hit it right on that. was just going to ask that.

Erik | FUZE (09:21)

I think it's a really holistic approach that we try to take, starting from identifying those core tenants and then building from there. Yes, the visual brand, but then also what does the voice sound like? How do we engage with people? What's our MO for nurturing that culture along the way? that's where we connect with that audience, I think, on a deeper level, or where the university could connect with their stakeholders on a deeper level where they can nurture that community along the way and it just gives a more cohesive message that resonates with everybody on just that much deeper level

Josh (09:57)

All right, so storytelling, how do you weave storytelling? Because a lot of what we're doing, it's a lot of bits and pieces. We're doing this over here and that over there, and it's this big program. have 16 different locations. There's all kinds of stuff. And you really have to point it in one universal direction. And you talk about the missions and values, which I think is huge. think every program, whether your school has a mission and values, I think your food service program needs to have one specifically.

Josh (10:24)

But how do you weave that storytelling of all that into your marketing and communication efforts?

Erik | FUZE (10:30)

you know, involving your base in your story is really critical these days. You know, people like authenticity and, you know, that's what resonates. They're not trying to connect with a brand, you know, that's just got like this, ambiguous mission. You know, they're just trying to sell something to somebody, right? We're in a, we're in a culture where stories matter. And I think that to me, that's really the currency of connection is that storytelling aspect because we're bombarded with information on a daily basis. And I think just effective storytelling is the way to capture attention away from all these other noisy things that's kind of going on. So I think when you tell compelling stories about the origin of your brand or your values or your customer experiences or you're engaging your audience in a meaningful way, I think those narratives are the ones that create those emotional ties and just encourage your consumer, whoever they are, whether it's a student or faculty or what have you. But I think it allows people to feel more invested, I think, overall in the brand, which creates loyalty. And there's so many great stories out there to tell. so I think that's where you do such a fine job, because you're grabbing the stories from all of your guests along the way, and you're allowing us a platform to share.

what's going on. And as you build this bigger network of things, Josh, you know, what I've, what I've seen happen is, is you're creating your own community here. That's ultimately adding value to those that you're serving And so that's what I love about your approach with this. It's a, know, you're just, you're grabbing the story, this collection of stories and you're creating this authentic thing where you can bring all of us together to go serve those that you're trying to serve. So, you know, that's, that's what I really love about, you know,

I think the art storytelling and again, I like to call it the currency of connection. It really is something that is just, it's that connecting point that just feels true and authentic and just connects with everybody at a much deeper level than just an experiential thing.

Josh (12:33)

All right, so we talked about sharing all these different values and missions So can you share how you've successfully rebranded a food service program in terms of helping to tell that story?

Erik | FUZE (12:46)

Yeah, absolutely. So one that comes to mind came from a very long time clients and good friends of ours. They referred us to a university, Johns Hopkins University, and they were moving from a contract operation situation into self -op. And by the time really the project got rolling, we were on their pretty significant time crunch. It was about a three month development timeframe to create the identity to work with university communications, to make sure that everything was checked as I was talking about before, checking off all those boxes, making sure everything falls under the umbrella of the brand that they want to portray, both visually and from a tonality standpoint. and then equip them with enough new concept work and new branded pieces to be able to launch by the fall. so, in about a three month time period, it was a pretty wild pace, really led largely by Abby to be able to work with them to develop all this new things. Abby, I'm sure you got some things that you could probably walk us through and then maybe expand on the process a little bit more if you would.

Abby Paciotti | FUZE (13:52)

Yeah, absolutely.

Hopkins dining, like Eric said, was going from contract to self -op. So we initially worked with the communications department and the dining department to brand the overall dining program. So we came up with something pretty simple, they, had, a unique set of fonts that we were able to use, a color set so we came up with a nice overall brand for the dining program. and then everything kind of fell in line under that. So, we started with that, with style guides for that,

Brand guidelines so that they could have student interns and other people work on things and know, what they could and couldn't do. so that's, that's where we started. We also did, some website updates for them, to the dining section of the website, updating copy and content as well as imagery, to bring it alongside this new lookthat we created and then the next step was they needed to rebrand several of their, locations. Nolans, Hopkins Cafe, Levering and Charles Street Market were all, locations that needed to get rebranded because what they were currently branded was under the old contract companies brands. So we did those along with the design, the initial phase of the project. So again, you can tell that everything is unique, but also like looks very Hopkins, right? So everything is recognizable as Hopkins -esque in color and font.

Josh (15:21)

Yeah.

Abby Paciotti | FUZE (15:26)

We added this one in a little later, the Levering Taco Kitchen. That was a station that they needed to rebrand. And then most recently, actually this summer, we rebranded these three concepts for them, which was in their Levering location. So all four of these are in the same place.

Erik | FUZE (15:46)

and I would I would add to that, you know what was kind of neat about that one and this has been an ongoing engagement with them for about two years now, I would say. You know what was kind of neat about this mosaic and Red Lantern Kitchen and Tossed is, a direct response to the university being proactive and meeting the needs of students from all over the world, you know, where they they've got those dining choices. And again, that's because they've got a great pulse on their student community as far as being able to realize that, it's time to alter and change some concepts to be able to make sure that everybody's desires are being met and their experiences are being met, right? So, huge kudos to Hopkins Dining for just being proactive about those things.

Josh (16:29)

Yeah. And I hope audience that you're all able to see the video on this and what they're showing. It's nice. It's clean. It's consistent. And never really thought about that, but you know, the campus itself usually has a branding style guide. In fact, they do, right? They have someone where they have a document with it and then we go and we rebrand dining differently. And there's never usually, and obviously you guys did here, a styling guide for that.

Erik | FUZE (16:44)

Yeah, yes.

Abby Paciotti | FUZE (16:45)

Right, the university.

Erik | FUZE (16:51)

Mm -hmm.

Josh (16:57)

different branding that sits within another branding style, guys. So it's very unique in that you did that and so often miss and I mean, I'm not going to throw names out there, but even some of the contractors out there, they can use some help with their branding.

Erik | FUZE (17:11)

Yeah, yeah. Well, and that's funny you bring that up because I mean, you know, in the past, we have worked with universities that do have some great contract relationships. And one of the joys, I think, where we get to connect on that level is, getting involved with the culinarians there, right? You know, who's the head of their food service? Who's their head chef? And what kind of menus are they trying to ideate on? You know, there was a major university in the SEC that we did some work with several years ago in redesigning one of the res halls. And I think we came out with seven or eight new branded concepts. And all of those were menu driven concepts, both on the facility design side and then also on the overall brand component as well, when we came up with those names. so, I think that's engaging on branding is so much more like I was saying, mean, it's so much more than just a logo, right? In these cases, we're working with the chefs to talk about, you know, what are their menu ideas? What are they creating? What are they trying to create? What's the emotion they're trying to impart? And how can we then turn that into a visual experience to kind of really make it a whole complete idea?

Abby Paciotti | FUZE (18:14)

Right. Well, and I'll add like the, these were menu driven as well. the Levering Taco Mosaic, Red Lantern and Tossed they were more menu driven, based on what they change those concepts to. So, that actually the menu and food types and provides a lot of inspiration, for, where we go with the visual brand.

Erik | FUZE (18:46)

Yeah. And Abby, think you've got some campaign type work. I know that you had worked on with, with their team also, maybe dining program type of situations as well.

Abby Paciotti | FUZE (18:55)

Yeah. So this was after their first spring that they were, self -op, they had a big push for, meal plan, to get people to sign up for meal plan. so we came up with this campaign, which was join the Foodie Flock So, making it fun, making it almost like a club, right? Like something you want to be a part of. And so we did, we did, you know, print materials, so posters, table tents, flyers, we had t -shirts that they gave out at like their tabling events. We did window graphics. So that was a large window graphic that was on the side of one of the buildings.

Josh (19:17)

I love that.

Abby Paciotti | FUZE (19:33)

And then they did some other fun stuff. We did social media graphics, but just creating a campaign under the dining brand for meal plans specifically for this one. And then for that, we also did like a more involved dining guide. taking that one step further and creating a brochure.

That just is more informational on all of the options that they offer for dining.

Josh (20:00)

That's very important. That's often first impression that a student might get or a potential student might get.

Erik | FUZE (20:02)

Yeah.

Abby Paciotti | FUZE (20:05)

Right, right.

Erik | FUZE (20:05)

Yeah, or even a secondary customer of the parent, right? You know, mean, so many decisions on where you go to school are based on the parent's perception of that and then how they engage with that dining program. And so, you know, we want to make sure we're always keeping those additional stakeholders in mind when we're trying to communicate messaging.

Josh (20:29)

So true. Where you eat and where you sleep. That's one of the top things, right? Awesome. And you talked a little bit about, and what I love is getting student feedback earlier.

All right, so you mentioned earlier a little bit about the student feedback getting in part of the overall movement for marketing, branding, storytelling. I think that's very, very important because it ties into engagement. So have you gotten involved with the process or just give some pointers in terms of getting that feedback and using that to shape your strategy in telling these stories?

Abby Paciotti | FUZE (21:04)

it's important for the universities to have good partners to help them gather that feedback. Specifically for a JHU, we've taken student feedback on several things, specifically on some of the concept branding. They wanted to get student feedback on both names, like actually what we're calling things as well as the visual brand. So when we come up with, two or three logos that, the dining team likes, they'll take it to a student team to review and get their feedback. so while I haven't been directly involved in it, we have used student feedback to make changes and shape what our final designs have been.

Erik | FUZE (21:43)

and I would say as well, dining programs should engage their student government associations. They should create, dining committees to foster this kind of feedback, and when possible, use technology to speed that up and track that on. And a lot of dining programs do that with several solutions that are out there.

Trying to run all that through a spreadsheet, automating that process is definitely something that we should be seeing more universities move towards. It's not as heavy of a lift, the more we can digitize.

Josh (22:17)

Yeah, so true. We can do a whole episode just on the tech side of things, but we won't go down that rabbit hole today. So awesome. Thank you both for taking the time to come on and talk about this, again, much, much needed topic, hot topic. And I'm sure that everyone is gaining some value here. So in terms of continuing the conversation if they want to, if they want to come back and get more information on some of the things we discussed, how can people connect with you?

Erik | FUZE (22:43)

Yeah, well, we're both pretty active on LinkedIn. We're out there quite a bit doing things, posting new stuff. We attend a lot of conferences and that kind of thing. And of course, probably the best place to find us is just at our website. Go to thefuze.net and FUZE with a Z. You'll get to know a little bit more about our team and figure out how we can add some.

Josh (23:05)

Make sure you take advantage of that everyone. You won't be disappointed. Thank you, Eric and Abby. You're all ambassadors for Remarkable Academic Food Service for everything you're doing to help our programs. I appreciate you and everything you're doing. And audience, RAF Nation, until next time, know, I'm your host, signing off.