Thank you! Thank you! for responding to Miles & Smiles! You’ve donated to these, your favorite organizations, so look out for the smiles coming back at you!     Here’s to being healthy and smiling… and growing this list over the next month!

Julie

See more about miles & smiles and click on these logos to learn more about the organizations

Last year, for my 50th birthday I completed 50 miles and 50 smiles!

For the month before my birthday, I ran 50 miles (roughly 1.6 miles/day) and then gathered 50 smiles. To count as a “smile”, I did a little something special for a friend or family member that put a smile on their face.   My golf buddies made me count 1 smile just for telling them about my campaign!  The month culminated in a run with my daughter and sharing my smiles with my family on August 16th!

Now for my next birthday: 51 Miles and 51 Smiles! Here’s the new plan:

• 51 Miles:  I’ll run 51 miles in the month before August 16^th

• 51 Smiles:  This year I plan to capture 51 smiles from you, my friends and family member AND from our favorite charities.  Here’s how it works:  I’ll make a donation in an increment of $51 to two of my favorite non-profit organizations.  Then I’ll ask you to make a donation (in any increment of 51 you like…$.51 or $5.10 or $51 or $510) to your favorite organization.   Just let me know about your donation, and I’ll find a way to make you smile!   I’m looking forward to your encouragement in running as well as making you and the people your organizations serve smile!  Look for regular progress updates on Facebook and on this site.

My donation will be to Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd for so many positive changes in the works and to Plymouth Christian Youth Center, the wonderful agency improving the prospects for kids and families in North Minneapolis!

It’s making me smile to write this!  1 down!

I hope you join me in smiling all the way to August 16th!

Julie

This Exact Target statistic shows the differences between generations… older folks like email, high schoolers prefer texts.  This doesn’t surprise me as I pay for two college kids phone bills each month (800+ texts per month each) and rarely get emails from either of them. Yet the size of the preference is astounding.  Note to self:  look out for successful text marketing and continue to learn more about mobile marketing.  And remind the kids to NOT text while driving!

This new data from NPD on consumers’ attitudes on restaurant usage is key for Food marketers. Many businesses have seen strong gains in the last year just due to the fact that consumers are buying more from grocery stores and going to restaurants less. As the trend reverses- as the data starts to show – what is your strategy for keeping restaurant-sourced volume? Or will you find new volume sources? Can you gain back volume from Private Label?
This is the key question of the next year for grocery marketers!