I debated over my Panera lunchbox choice for at least 5 minutes before selecting the Vegetarian sandwich. My first memory of Panera is of taking a break in college to go out for lunch with friends. The smell of fresh bread overwhelmed me as I surveyed the menu options. My friend ordered soup in a bread bowl and I followed en suite. Very few soup in a sour dough bread bowl compares to that of Panera. Eating soup reminds me of being a sick child in the wintertime. Soup is what mom made when I was not feeling well. Panera soup in a bread bowl combines my association of soup with care with enjoying the company of friends. However, since I have returned to school, Panera lunchboxes remind me of meetings, some boring, some interesting. My association of care and fun with Panera overrides the tedium of meeting tasks.
Turkey sandwiches are sandwiches of my teenage years. It made me feel more sophisticated than peanut butter and jelly. However, vegetarian sandwiches remind me of the past year of my life. I have been trying to lose weight and vegetables are very good for you. That memory reflects my mother's saying and constant pressure to 'eat my vegetables.' My ex was a vegetarian. San Francisco has many vegetarians in it. However, I love meat. I am from the Midwest where to own a cow means that you have community status. Turkey is the healthier alternative to beef. To eat turkey is to be a Midwesterner and to eat vegetarian is to be a West Coaster. My selection of a vegetarian sandwich marks my conversion from being a Midwestern teenager to a West Coast adult.
Panera should analyze which sandwiches are more popular where and analyze the cultural reasons for that popularity. If Panera understands that vegetarian sandwiches are exceptionally popular because of the health and adult life-style connotations, it can market to those consumers accordingly. If Panera understands that turkey sandwiches symbolize growth and a yearning to find one's place in the world (as one feels as a teen), it can market to those consumers accordingly.
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