API. Application Programming Interface. By definition, an API is traditionally thought of as functions or routines that help technical software interact and converse with one another. As marketers or business development professionals in the tech startup world, we often constrain the idea of API integration solely to tech and use it as a main source to integrate one company’s offerings with another’s.
After three years of working in the tech startup space as a public relations professional, I made the transition to lead the marketing efforts at The Meatball Shop. It was certainly a departure from my usual field of relationships and network. I had no prior experience working in the restaurant industry, but desperately wanted a new challenge with a product I had grown to love: the meatballs at The Meatball Shop (and the brand behind them). The logic behind my initial pitch to co-owner, Michael Chernow – the meatball should be looked at as our API.
The concept of a physical food product as an API may seem very strange and abstract. But it has remained a guiding principle that we’ve used to build new brand partnerships across multiple verticals, as well as strengthen existing relationships. Whether it has been a partnership with a tech startup to improve the in-house dining experience, a leading clothing manufacturer to help us build brand affinity with our customer base when they leave our restaurant doors, or a social media joint promotion (i.e.: a “Deck The Halls, Check Your Balls” campaign we ran last December with Fuck Cancer), the positioning of our food as way for both larger and smaller brands to break into the growing popular food vertical has been a real key to growing our brand beyond the restaurant doors. Symbiotically, it has enabled us to break into new verticals that you would never expect a restaurant to be a part of.
Every company should think of their own brand as a product that can be integrated within another brand. When one moves beyond the belief that an API is restricted to coding terminology, one opens up endless possibilities for strategic marketing partnerships. Creativity becomes the enabler of promotion that is only limited by a fear of working in unknown territory.
There’s no reason to fear that territory. The more imaginative one can get with their brand’s API, the more opportunities one has to grow a wide and diverse audience.