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The Choqoa Marketing case with C-MD

by on September 21, 2010 in Marketing

This week I had one of those great Choqoa moments. Here’s how it went. Almost exactly one year ago I seriously played with the idea of throwing up the ‘marketing’ idea of Choqoa out in the open. Somehow I wanted to challenge some young smart marketing people and (former) colleagues in my network, other agencies etc. There are several angles on the Choqoa story both to overcome and to develop. Giving them kind of a playground and poking them a bit, hunt for their comments, suggestions and ideas on my Choqoa project seemed nice to me. I started a briefing, a presentation to throw in slideshare or so… That never happened. Then.

A couple of months ago when I did the Choqoa story on the Pecha Kucha event in Genk, an enthusiast professor of the KHLIM (Niels Hendriks) approached me, he was working on classes about communication and multimedia design. Eventually he pitched the idea of using Choqoa as a marketing case project for his students to work on. Give them a briefing, challenge them with specific questions and have them unleash their creativity on it for 3 months. That did happen, this week. And the coming 3 monts. It’s amazing how things go in life.

Here is the presentation I gave to kickoff the Choqoa project last Monday in Maastricht. It introduces how I got this chocolate passion, how it became an obsession and where the passion became a mission. Explores things I’m doing with it, what tools I use so far etc. It’s a lot visual, get in touch for info if you want too. The last slides contain the actual questions the international C-MD group will work on. It seemed these students where very enthusiast, while I was driving back they already wrote on the Choqoa Facebook page, and I got some new Twitter followers. Way to go!

Staying true to that idea, and the whole Choqoa philosophy, I want to share it with anyone. If it inspires you, let me know. Make Choqoa your playground too, but don’t forget to rediscover chocolate as well!

The Choqoa Marketing Case @ C-MD

PS: and thank you Steven, it reminds me (again) of your encouraging blogpost

Marcolini Unleashes His Bean-to-bar Passion

Marcolini Unleashes His Bean-to-bar Passion

by on August 27, 2009 in Marketing, On Chocolate & Cacao

Marcolini. Carre² Chocolat. Gran Cru de Propriété I’d say I’m really glad Belgium’s most exclusive chocolatier Pierre Marcolini finally as devoted his time on a truely fine collection of single origin bars. Beyond the aged myth of ‘Belgian Chocolate’, Marcolini is achieving to catch up with the real luxury chocolate scenes of France, Italy and Germany. Abroad the consumtption of luxury dark chocolate with curious consumers has been lifting since 5 years at least, and now this iconic Belgian chocolatier finally ventures into origin chocolate bars with a luscious collection. Featuring Venezuelan Criollo, cacao from the Sambirano valley in Madagsacar and the Tabasco region in Mexico, this series are wellworth exploring!

Meanwhile, Marcolini get’s the website upgrade his passion deserves. Brussels interactive agency Emakina recently launched the new www.marcolini.com and sure did a great job here. Be sure to watch the Carre² Chocolat video where the Master Chocolatier himselve talkes passionately about the various pleasures and obstacles of single origin cacao, working together with plantations, and launching this particular collection.

Cacao Chemistry. Films by TCHO pt.3

by on July 4, 2009 in Marketing, On Chocolate & Cacao

This eventually is the 3th and final video documenting TCHO chocolates. After introducing processing cacao, and going behind the scenes in the TCHO labs, this one ends up with the BoignBoing team eventually tasting TCHO chocolate.
You’ll learn about the tasting universe, just as with wines, and see them discovering the true essence of cacao and its characteristics. “Hey, It tastes like a cigar”…Enjoy!

(via BoingBoing)

Taking your orders for the Salon du Chocolat!

by on October 28, 2008 in Marketing, Trips

So you’ve been reading about all this wonderful new types of dark chocolate that you’ve never heard of? Until exploring this blog you couldn’t image dark chocolate would taste like strawberries, citrus, leather and wood? My visit to the Salon du Chocolat may be an opportunity for you to get some for yourself!

I’m open to be your delivery boy and bar dealer, for those interested in trying some of the origin chocolate that I’ve been blogging about since last month. For two friends I’m already working out a kind of “Original Introduction Sampler”, a set of 4-6 bars that may cost you like somewhere between 20-30 €.
I presume that on the 12.000m² you sure have some shopping corners. I will select some ‘accessible’ bars and a few more ‘challenging’ ones, reflecting what I learned in other tastings I had in the past weeks. You will also get some tips on best tasting practices from me, In return I challenge you to definitely share with me what you did (not) appreciate in the various bars!

Please let me know if you are interested in getting your “Original Introduction Sampler” before tomorrow evening. Mail me through my Facebook profile, or use the contact form or email me on :> choqoa {at} gmail dot com.

I’m warmheartedly looking forward to get your orders!

One month of Choqoa.com

by on October 24, 2008 in Marketing

So it’s been one month at Choqoa.com and what happened? At first I’m really happy myself to finally have created a place to share my passion. I really should have started this earlier, but speaking with hindsight is always easy. Blogging takes time and energy, though passion fuels the fire, so let’s rock on to make the story pay off. It’s a great after all to synthesize my addiction in words that I can easily share with you.

At present the site is gaining visitors from all continents, which very nice to spot and also the main reason for me to blog in English. In the map below you see where visitors come from and I indicated for fun the growing zone of cacao, which is about 20° up and down the equator. See for yourself:

Next to direct traffic and already some interesting Google search results, I also get a good amount of visits through my Cacao Aficionado photos on Flickr. It’s encouraging to see that both hobbies strengthen each other. The Choqoa on Twitter account also helps a little to drive int’l traffic. It’s pleasant to spot some people here that are equally into (digital) marketing and share the curiosity and passion for chocolate (jacksonbr, jomarbr, timwillems, Emakina). Stats are picking up slowly, there definitely is still work to do for building more extensive traffic, so I also created a Choqoa Facebook FanPage to which I invite all of you to join too!

And also off line in real life, a lot of encouraging things happened. On my chocolate safari in Düsseldorf I discovered new brands like Hussel, Coppeneur and Maglio, and also the Neuhaus bars bought later on in Antwerp seem interesting. I went behind the scenes at chocolatier Goossens, and all of the people whom I had taste from ‘my’ chocolate reacted exactly as I hoped, though most of the time I was rather nervous awaiting their first impressions. :-)
I went networking on the Max Havelaar FairTrade Colloquium and was very enthusiast meeting the people from Callebaut over there. They were charmed by my story and invited me to share more about our passion. In return I learned a lot from them too, and above all they were really helpful in providing a lot of new information on the cacao market. Their Account Manager was even so friendly to provide me with the origin samples for that other great offline experience: my first wine & chocolate pairing.

As for actual business resulting from this blog, I’m excited by getting a freelance job for one of the world’s most famous chocolatier brands, and I’ll be helping to develop their online & digital strategy. Next to that, it’s still about exploring various opportunities for how we eventually really may get into cacao business: whether it is venturing in a self-owned project or by joining the industry at a marketing related position, that is still open. Next milestone will be the Salon du Chocolat, next week in Paris!