Yes … that’s David Ansel, the Soup Peddler, in a lengthy spread from November’s issue of FOOD AND WINE magazine. (Nice to see the Law of Remarkability in action.)
This autumn we find the Soup Peddler in the beginning throes of his fifth soup season. But this year, many things have changed for Brand Autopsy’s favorite jumboSHRIMP Marketing business. Gone is the infamous delivery bike in favor of deliveries by refrigerated trucks. And gone is the single-minded soup menu. In its place is an expanded menu including entrees because as David said in an email to his Soupies,
Soup has definitely been the ticket for this business. So why would I choose to 'water down' the company by expanding the menu?Well, I looked really long and hard at what we were doing, at what the Soupies were eating, and did a little experimentation, you'll recall, with menu expansion last season. When we offered non-soup items, they were every bit as popular as the soups, which led me to re-evaluate exactly the purpose we were serving in your lives.
It was not about soup, it was about lovingly-made food.
I thought about myself as a Soupie. If I was one, if I was overburdened at work, if I was pretty well stretched out by raising a family, if I couldn't bear to go out to a restaurant for dinner or bring in crappy take-out, well, I'd want more than just soup delivered to my door.
What I find remarkable about the growth of the Soup Peddler is how he continues to get bigger by acting smaller through using three core jumboSHRMP Marketing rules.
(1) Be the Best, Not the Biggest
The Soup Peddler’s kudzu-like growth is 100% organic. The changes he has made to his business are designed merely to meet the increasing bottom-up demand from his devoted customers. Sure, he could easily double, triple, or quadruple sales by going into the wholesale soup business. But the Soup Peddler isn’t interested in going big to get bigger. He’d much rather continue to grow his business by being the best, not the biggest.
(2) Fostering Customer Devotion, Not Customer Loyalty
Loyalty schmoyalty. It takes more than customer loyalty to sell soup to hundreds of Austinites when its 108 degrees outside like it was the second week of the Soup Peddler’s fall soup season … it takes customer devotion.
(3) Local Warming is Good
The Soup Peddler not only warms one’s belly, he also warms the local community. Through his SoupShare Programme, he’s forming win-win relationships with local non-profits and schools. The Soup Peddler has become so intertwined within the fabric of the Austin community that his story is included in the recently opened play, Keepin’ it Weird.
All this talk about the Soup Peddler is making me hungry for some … soup. Reckon, I’ll have to wait until next week for my Multi-Critter Gumbo and Zimbabwe Peanut Stew to satiate my soup pangs.
I must say I have been a little disappointed at the changes that David has made this year. A lot of the quirkiness is gone. In its place, it feels like some corporate marketing machine is behind it now. Almost like the phoney doublemint gum blog or the those coke commercials where "real kids" are driving around the country filming other cool "real kids" who all drink coke. It seems David has tasted the taste of money, likes it, and is going to use his quirky goodwill to sell me all sorts of stuff. I like it most when it was just him, on a bike, sharing his soup. I don't fault him; its just lost some charm for me.
Posted by: Modo Evets | October 12, 2005 at 01:32 PM
Yeah ... David has made changes but one thing I don't has changed are the core values of LOCAL FOOD and LOCAL FLAVOR. All companies have to make some compromises as they get bigger. The secret is not to compromise those core values which make you remarkable.
With expanding the menu beyond soup ...I reckon if the food sucks, people won't buy it and David will stop selling it.
I too like the story of the Soup Peddler delivering soup to his small cadre of Soupies on his yellow bike. But was the soup tasty because of the bike or because of the passion/love that went into the soup? My voice says David's passion/love made the soup tastier.
Posted by: johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy) | October 12, 2005 at 04:14 PM
hi, new reader here. and also a new soupie. i moved into a delivery zone a few months ago and soon signed up for this fall. i'm just now staring down at a near-empty bowl of tomato bisque, my first soup peddler soup, and am ready to lick it clean. it's soooooooo good, and made better by the ideals the business upholds. i can taste exactly what the fuss is about now, and can't wait til next week!
to the first poster, the whole-meal thing seems like overkill to me as well, but if i had a family and kids or roommates and could afford it, i would probably splurge on one once in awhile, especially if the quality of the entrees was as good as the soup. you also seem to be overlooking the fact that "quirk" has been used as a local business marketing tool for years now, and often for products that would be considered subpar if they weren't cooked, produced, or sold in one certain zip code.
Posted by: j | October 13, 2005 at 12:38 AM