Concordia University Seminar: Marketing Food and Place

In a cramped Yokohama apartment, a single woman in her early thirties sits on a floor cushion, balancing a small plate of cheese and crackers she bought that afternoon at a gourmet shop. As she closes her eyes and tastes her first bite the sounds of the city fade: She’s transported to a gentle hillside in Provence, admiring a French sunset.

Someday, maybe next year, she’ll travel to France on a culinary holiday, to experience the tastes and sights she’s known only from afar.

Food and place are inextricably linked. For centuries - - long before MBA students began studying the nuances of branding - - the interplay of food and place has created imagery in consumers’ minds, inspiring sales and tourism activity.

In the case of France and cheese, that interplay seems natural. But for those marketing, say, Chattanooga as a culinary destination, or the filbert nut of Oregon, the linkage of food and place represents a challenge - - but not an impossibility.

Using examples from the emerging field of culinary tourism, we will build upon marketing principles to understand branding at its most fundamental, tapping into several skills in a marketer’s tool-kit: Promotion, Research, New Product Development. Moreover, we will draw upon disciplines from outside the business world, taking lessons from Sociology, History, Cultural Anthropology and Folklore.