Somewhere down the line, there will be a rant about nouns that verbify, but that will have to wait.
While on one of my recent trips, I was struck by an observation: my food has suddenly gotten fancier. This would be easy to explain if it were a simple matter of giving up McWendy King for actual pay-at-the-table restaurants. But no, I can state for the record that my food – in presentation alone – is getting fancier.
I blame the “Iron Chef” series from the food network. I even found myself joking with colleagues that this particular establishment would have to work harder to get a full “5” from me on ‘plating.’ “Plating,” of course, being the judging criterion encompassing the visual aesthetic of the collective ensemble. Or – for those of you who aren’t interested in looking up those words – the cooking equivalent of the Swimsuit Competition.
I can only guess that restaurants worth their salt (and only a fresh-ground sea salt will do) are banking that more of us are aware of this notion of “plating,” and are doing their best to ratchet up to the new expectation. Not that poor decoration and placement will cause me to walk out on my prime rib. It won’t. But a little attention to detail goes a long way. 
It makes the difference between “carefully stacked pork medallions, arranged over a mound of creamed potatoes, with a pound-sign shaped cross-hatch (#) of asparagus lovingly woven across the top. I suppose that if my food is going to touch, they’d better prove it was Intelligent Design, and not accidental evolution caused by my server’s tectonic arm movements.
(Note – the picture above was not my meal. I did a Google Image search for “plating iron chef” and this pic was the second that popped up. I had already written the (#) line. Eerie.)
So, apparently I have been slow on the uptake, but I can see this trend has been gaining steam. I’m sure there is a generation of chefs that now feel empowered to be creative, but there is soon the very real threat that this will be considered a new expectation – a standard part of service instead of something unique.
The lesson for marketers – or anyone else who is selling something (like a message) – is stay alert to the demands, expectations, and intelligence of your clientèle. If your customers are getting smarter about how your service can be done, they will have more stringent expectations about how it will be done.
[tags]Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR, marketing, Iron Chef[/tags]
