Denny’s Restaurants has been around for…well…for a long time. Long as I can remember, anyway. And they’ve been largely interchangeable, between their competition. I mean, can you really tell me how Denny’s differs from iHOP, Shoneys, or any of the other places that cater to big appetites with small wallets? I can’t. But Denny’s may have found a way to cut through the clutter and make a name for themselves. And it involves, of all things, television.

Television…it’s sooooo 90′s. Or 80′s. Lord knows, it’s not “now,” or “hip” or “happening.” The flavor of the month for that would be Twitter, or one of the other social networking phenoms. So it’s unusual in this day and age to see an established but sleepy brand do something that can rise above the video noise and come up with a campaign that is, well…blogworthy. But Denny’s did it.

Their new commercial features a Joe Average guy who looks like he’s not afraid to get his hands dirty for a living, coincidentally somebody that actually enjoys eating enough food to qualify as not only breakfast, but ballast. He has that same sort of no-nonsense, matter-of-fact delivery that marks him as a stereotypical “solid Midwestern” type. Think Patrick “Puddy” Warburton, without the fame.

What gets your attention, though, is some of the best writing I’ve seen in a commercial since Bartles & Jaymes started the wine cooler craze. They’ve created a character that at once comes off as both endearingly earnest and charmingly a little thick. He opines about frappaccinos and mochaccinos as foodstuffs not fit for a decent breakfast.

Denny’s has correctly identified their competition for the breakfast market not restaurants like iHOP, but coffee shops like Starbucks. You see, by going after the coffee crowd, they can increase their market share for breakfasts by acquiring new customers, rather than fighting their fellow restaurants for the same bunch that already brunches. They establish this proposition with a memorable one-liner, “Coffee and milk foam is NOT a meal!” But it gets better. The payoff at the end of the spot is the best one-liner that ranks right up there with Bartles & Jaymes best:

“Mr. Chino, I’m not a fan of your beverages, but I sure do love your pants.”

With the kind of responses they are getting from the public, I’d be surprised if the Denny’s guy doesn’t join spokesmodels like my personal fave, the Glade Lady, in a long-running series of spots. I’d also be surprised if Denny’s market share and in-store sales doesn’t go through the roof.

No thanks to Mr. Chino, and his beverage empire.

Starbucks began life as a small chain of coffee shops founded on the principle that consumers would pay extra for a better cup of coffee. As it turns out, a LOT more. It worked. The company created an experiential mystique that enabled them to justify paying outrageous amounts of money for a cuppa joe. (This is a quantitatively provable, as blind taste tests have repeatedly shown that grocery store Folgers beats Starbucks coffee on taste. It’s the perception that Starbucks java is better that let’s them charge out the wazoo.) As a way to keep buns in seats, Starbucks began offering WiFi access. After some experimentation, Starbucks settled on a WiFi provider, and a standardized pricing structure. Another effort to make Starbucks Uber Alles was to put cafes in other retailers, such as Barnes & Noble Booksellers locations. It’s a nice fit – books and coffee. Recently, Starbucks and B&N announced a new policy, offering WiFi access at no charge within every B&N location.

In Shreveport, there’s a Barnes & Noble almost directly across the street (Youree Drive) from a freestanding Starbucks store. You can argue that the ambience is different at the two stores – the freestanding store has a few stuffed chairs, while you have to walk out of the Starbucks and into the B&N store area in order to find a comfortable chair. And of course, the B&N Starbucks has a virtually limitless supply of books and magazines. And free WiFi.

I learned of the WiFi policy disconnect today, when I took my dad to the freestanding Starbucks in search of some java and a change of scenery. It was then that I learned that WiFi access is not free at Starbucks. Well…not at that Starbucks. The one directly across the street has all the free WiFi you can eat, and books to boot.

The net effect is that the freestanding Starbucks has lost a customer, for I value the ability to get online as much as I treasure my beverage du jour. If I can get one for free, I’m gonna beat a path to their door, leaving the freestanding Starbucks one or two customers the poorer. The whole experience makes me wonder, just how long it will take Starbucks to realize how many customers they are alienating by charging for something in Store A, that they are willing to give away in Store B.

What makes people willing to pay a premium for something with such a small cost of goods, and little inherent value?

I hate to harp on this “perception” thing (again) but people perceive that Starbucks coffee is better than Folgers, and they’ll pay more for it (plus the “experiential” thing that the Starbucks store represents).  In a restaurant, when you want a Coke, you pay for it – without stopping to think that you can buy a case of Cokes at Sam’s Club for the same money you spend to buy a 12 oz. Coke while dining out.

Now THAT’S marketing.

The truth is, blind taste tests have shown that users prefer thing like (shudder! gasp!) instant coffee to the pricier stuff, over and over again. In fact, in many tests, the pricey coffee scores were pretty low.

Is expensive, Starbucks coffee really better than the cheap stuff? Only if you think it is.

Why would you think it is? Because you’ve bought the marketing story that Starbucks is telling. As a marketer, that’s like the two-sided coin – crisis/opportunity. There’s crisis there – “their stuff is really better than our stuff!” and opportunity – “if our story is better than their stuff, we’ll sell more, regardless.”

In this uncertain (at best) economy, we need to remember that marketing works. Don’t lose faith. And don’t panic. Several years ago, David Letterman had Rush Limbaugh on his show. At one point in the interview, he looked at Rush and asked, “do you ever wake up in the morning and wonder, is today the day they’re gonna figure out that I don’t know what I’m doing?” Now Letterman is a liberal smartass, and he asked the question to try and embarrass Rush. It didn’t work. Limbaugh replied that all talented people feel that way. I believe this is because that, if you are talented, your skills come easy to you, and you don’t feel as though what you do is difficult – or special. The trick is to learn to capitalize on your skills and yet not lose perspective. When you know what you’re doing, marketing seems…well…obvious. It seems like little more than common sense. (if common sense is so common, why is there so bloody little of it?) Marketing is magic, in a way. Magicians know how their tricks work – and realize they are not magic, but skill. Marketers are the same way. It’s vital that we don’t lose sight of the fact that we are in a business where a little magic makes the difference between a brand or campaign that works – and one that fails. When you wanna talk how to sell water strained through roasted beans for $4 a cup, the value you add is strictly marketing.