From Caterpillar to Social Butterfly

San Francisco’s Frank Gore leaves the game with an injury and is doubtful to return. Donald Driver catches a deep ball over his left shoulder one handed and sets the Packers up for a touchdown. Detroit may get off the schneid this week and win their first game since 2007. These and other fast facts and stats are typical of what should consume my Sunday. 

Start early with the pre-game shows. Coast through the morning matchups, hunker down for the afternoon contests, and wrap it all up 15 hours later with Sunday Night Football, the network’s pick for game of the weekend. This robust schedule of gridiron combat should satiate my football hunger long enough to get through Monday until, that’s right, Monday Night Football, ostensibly the most exciting 3 hours in sports. 

I may live in a hockey town, but my standard answer has always been, “there’s only two seasons in professional sports: NFL football and waiting for NFL football”. So it comes as a big adjustment to see my Sunday’s usurped by tweets, blogs, status updates, wall postings and other web 2.0 necessities.

I’m reminded of those prescient words of @exceptafterk, Creative Director at The Social Agency, who looked me square in the chest with one eye so she could keep the other eye on her IPhone. “I pray when I wake up that someone hasn’t invented a new social media marketing tool while I was sleeping that will make me feel like a business outcast if I’m not on it”.

A couple of years ago I took a road trip down the information superhighway, got to the end, took a few pictures and came home. Now it beckons again with a promise of more roadside attractions and no need to double back. I am a small business owner, and it is incumbent on me to participate in this electronic revolution, and I admit, it can be fun, albeit time consuming.

But today is Sunday, and as much as I feel a need to get some work done, I’m going to sit down in front of the TV, with a bowl of popcorn laced with chocolate chips, until the feeling passes.  

Marc Lieberman

Mink Chocolates Inc.,
Mink A Chocolate Cafe Ltd.

Call the store: 604.633.2451
Call my mobile: 604.376.3464
Call toll free: 1.866.283.5181

Shop: www.minkchocolates.com
Tweet: www.twitter.com/minkchocolates
Join:http://www.facebook.com/mink.chocolates
Read: http://blog.minkchocolates.com
Watch: http://www.youtube.com search mink chocolates
In Person: 863 Hastings Street West, Vancouver, BC V6C 3N9

The Planets Are Out of Alignment

Monday morning, and I’m on till, directing the flow of traffic through the store. Like Captain Kirk on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, I control the pace and tempo of the S.S. Mink Café as it hurtles through the space chocolate continuum. 

I’m taking orders, making change, directing most of these early morning office workers to the end of the bar to pick up their beverages, when a middle aged woman in a mis-matched pantsuit and knit cap walks up to the counter, and asks me what we do here. 

“We’re a chocolate shop with coffee”, I tell her, in support of the very large illuminated sign outside that says Mink A Chocolate Café. 

“Oh, I’m such a chocoholic”, she says. “Where do you keep it all then?” 

A momentary pang of incredulousness washes over me, because she’s standing right in front of a large glass countertop display of fresh, handmade chocolate bon bons. Maybe that fine knit cap on this hot fall day has made her brain swell, so I give her the benefit of the doubt, and wave my hand majestically over the display case and say to her, “I have these individual chocolates for your pleasure, and those over there are chocolate bars. Thirty two different flavors, all handmade”. 

She turns back towards the counter, studies the bon bons hard, asking me how I get the little pictures on each one. I explain that they are transfer sheets that are applied during the enrobing process, and that each unique image was created to identify the flavor of the particular chocolate. 

“Oh, they’re so cute”, she says. “I’m such a chocoholic”. 

“Yeh, I remember you saying that”, I think to myself, biting the inside of my cheek. 

“So what’s this one?” she asks, pointing to the one with the coffee cup on it. I realize not everything in life is self-explanatory. “That has espresso in the ganache”, I reply. 

“Oh. What about this”, she asks, and I tell her, and so it goes, down the line, one by one, until we get to the chocolate with the picture of a Greyhound on it.  

“That’s a Greyhound”, I answer, “and just like the cocktail, it’s made with vodka and grapefruit”. 

“Oh, do you have any with poodles? I love poodles”.

 “No ma’am, I’m sorry I don’t”. 

“That’s too bad. Maybe I’ll come back when you have poodles”. 

And with that, she turns and saunters to the front door, and leaves. A stated chocoholic left a chocolate shop without any chocolate because she loves poodles more. 

I pick up where I left off on till, sensing that today is going to be one of those days. Maybe I should read my horoscope just to make sure.

Marc Lieberman

Mink Chocolates Inc.,
Mink A Chocolate Cafe Ltd.

Call the store: 604.633.2451
Call my mobile: 604.376.3464
Call toll free: 1.866.283.5181

Shop: www.minkchocolates.com
Tweet: www.twitter.com/minkchocolates
Join:http://www.facebook.com/mink.chocolates
Read: http://blog.minkchocolates.com
Watch: http://www.youtube.com search mink chocolates
In Person: 863 Hastings Street West, Vancouver, BC V6C 3N9

Nine out of every ten persons say they love chocolate. The tenth lies.
– Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

I don’t always eat chocolate, but when I do, I eat Mink

A lot has been written lately about the Dos Equis commercial for The Most Interesting Man in the World. Just when you think every idea’s been hatched, every song written, something comes along that proves the depth and breadth of the creative process. 

In a sector (beer) where everyone else’s product is experiencing declining sales, Dos Equis is raging. The ad has very quickly become a part of our popular culture. Silvio Berlusconi was recently featured on the cover of MacLean’s Magazine as the Most Interesting Man in the World. Comedians are doing shtick on it. Hat’s off to the ad agency for their brilliance and to company management for buying the pitch. 

And in a bit of shameless self promotion, here’s our nod to that great piece of advertising.

Marc Lieberman

Mink Chocolates Inc.,
Mink A Chocolate Cafe Ltd.

Call the store: 604.633.2451
Call my mobile: 604.376.3464
Call toll free: 1.866.283.5181

Shop: www.minkchocolates.com
Tweet: www.twitter.com/minkchocolates
Join:http://www.facebook.com/mink.chocolates
Read: http://blog.minkchocolates.com
Watch: http://www.youtube.com search mink chocolates
In Person: 863 Hastings Street West, Vancouver, BC V6C 3N9

Nine out of every ten persons say they love chocolate. The tenth lies.
– Anthelme Brillat-Savarin