“Take me Out to the Ball Game” Song and Video Contest

Posted on May 27, 2009 by Amanda

Got a beat in your step and a competitive edge? Here is an interesting contest you might want to consider entering…

batdog The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council today announced an impressive lineup of judges for the Council’s contest to rewrite “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”so that it includes a long-overdue reference to hot dogs.

Judges will include Washington D.C.’s “Man About Town,” Bob Madigan,of WTOP radio; Chicago news and sports personality Bob Sirott of NBC5 ; hot dog historian Bruce Kraig, author of the new book Hot Dog; Agri-talk Radio Host Mike Adams; and Eric Haman, corporate communications manager at Hatfield Quality Meats and star of the YouTube sensation “The Hatfield Hot Dog Launcher.”

Entries must be received by June 12, 2009. Winners will be announced at the start of National Hot Dog Month July 1 and will be featured in an online video on the Hot Dog Council’s YouTube channel.

For details on prizes and how to enter, link to the American Meat Institute.

Running with Team ZIP

Posted on May 23, 2009 by Amanda

sl271584 A few months ago, I signed up for a half-marathon with my sister, Courtney. To boost our motivation, we joined Team ZIP (Zinc/Iron/ Protein), a group of runners who believe in the power of protein in the land of lean beef. We demonstrate that beef gives us the strength we need to cross the finish line by participating in running, cycling and triathlon events across the country. On May 16, just a week after my graduation from SDSU, Courtney and I ran our hearts out on behalf of America’s farmers and ranchers.

sl271569 This was my first half marathon, and I was proud to hear my name called as I crossed the finish line, announcing that I was running in support of beef. My jersey proudly said, “Beef, it’s what’s for dinner,” and it earned me quite a few comments and cheers throughout the race. Although my muscles were sore from the intensity of the race, my heart was proud of myself for finishing the race within my goal time.

If you are a runner or are interested in promoting agriculture in unique ways such as this, I encourage you to check out Team ZIP. There is a great bunch of folks that are a part of that group, and they are not only dedicated to living healthy, but also in protecting the integrity of the agriculture industry. I’m so proud to be a part of this group!

AgClassifieds.com Re-Launches

Posted on April 26, 2009 by Chuck

Dwayne Leslie above the border from us has re-launched AgClassifieds.com. He says it will incorporate many new marketing services for farm equipment dealers and farmers wishing to advertise individual items.

“Farmers have 3 traditional ways to purchase equipment” says AgClassifieds.com owner Dwayne Leslie “We wanted to bring the same effective and economical advertising options to farm equipment dealers and farmers as we have to the auction industry. Our Farm Auction Guide.com platform has been the industry leader for not only farm auctions but for online advertising for the auction industry in general since 2001 and we plan on building on that success.”

AgClassifieds.com is not just one site , but a growing network of ag related sites. In 2008 this network attracted 3 million visitors and 17 million pageviews looking for ag equipment . Many savvy marketers have been asking us for the ability to promote their inventory to these same farmers and after careful consideration for a long time, our new business model was launched. Continue reading →

NAMA’s Best

Posted on April 16, 2009 by Chuck

Best of NAMA Advertising Thanks to Denny Eilers for providing me with photos of our Best of NAMA award winners for each category.

First up is Best of Show, Advertising
(Left to Right)
Tom Bigelow, Bigelow Advertising
Rick Radermacher, Bigelow Advertising
Chris Lund, AGCO Application Equipment

Best of NAMA Public Relations The next ones are Best of Show, Public Relations
(Left to Right)
Paul Durham, Martin/Williams
Kim Dawson, Syngenta
Kerry Henderson, Gibbs & Soell

Best of NAMA Specialty And then we have Best of Show, Specialty
(Left to Right)
Richard Williams, Archer>Malmo
James Ward, Archer>Malmo
Mike Butler, Archer>Malmo

Congratulations to all winners and finalists!

NAMA Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the Agri-Marketing Conference is sponsored by:
and .

TractorHouse.com Now Has Live Auction

Posted on April 13, 2009 by Chuck

You can now sell your tractor by auction on the web at TractorHouse.com.

Online Auction Listings are now ‘live’ on TractorHouse.com. Consistent TractorHouse advertisers now have the option to auction their equipment to a worldwide buying audience, 24/7/365. All machines are auctioned directly by dealers to registered bidders on the Web site. Seller’s fees are minimal, and there are no auction fees charged to buyers. As a result, equipment can sell for less than at other conventional or online auctions.

“Buyers and sellers both are embracing the concept, even though it’s a fairly new idea to the industry,” says Nate DeWald, project manager of the Online Auction feature. The company reports that over $1 million worth of equipment has been auctioned in just the first few weeks since the feature’s introduction.

The company also has the live auction feature available on their MachineryFinder.com website.

SDSU’s 86th Little International a Success

Posted on March 30, 2009 by Amanda

n1282860004_30102280_2857 1,700 students and even more guests traveled to Brookings, SD to South Dakota State University to take part in the 86th Little International. Little “I” is the largest, two-day livestock exposition run completely by students for students. For the past three years I have served on the staff. My first two years, I served as the advertising and publicity superintendent. In my final year at SDSU, I served on the executive team to assist in this project that takes the full year to plan and prepare.

n1282860004_30102337_1563 So, what are the exciting events at Little International? How do we work to promote and publicize this event? Well, if you have never taken part in an event like this, I will fill you in. To start, there are several judging contests for FFA, 4-H and collegiate students to compete in, including: livestock, dairy, horses, dairy products, floriculture, nursery landscape, land and natural resources, farm business management, crops, meats evaluation and ag sales. Students can also exhibit crops, hay and wool samples for judging. In addition, college students can show livestock and compete for the Round Robin showmanship champion and reserve titles. There is also the High Point Freshman and Upperclassman awards that include a combination of all of these contests. The student that scores the highest and competes in the most contests secures this award. (I won these two awards back-to-back, the first girl in 86 years to do so! It is one of my favorite memories of my college experience!) Finally, there are scholarships awards available to the top showman, highpointers and highschool qualifiers.

n116501120_32343234_3922 To say the least, this is a huge event that celebrates agriculture and the people in it. The staff nominates an annual award called the Honored Agriculturalists, and this year’s award went to the Sharon Odegaard family from Lake Preston, S.D. To bring in a crowd, we have entertainment such as old timers showmanship, ag olympics and the national anthem sang by a featured singer in the community. We place radio spots and newspaper advertisements to help spread the word, along with sending out invitations to parents, sponsors and area legislators. I’m proud to have been a part of the Little International experience during my time at SDSU. Have you ever been to an event like this? What did you like about it? What can we as students do to get a larger crowd next year? Your advice would be greatly appreciated by the incoming staff members! Thanks for your help!

Agencies Behind Consumers Online

Posted on March 23, 2009 by Chuck

This story got me fired up on a Monday morning.

It’s nice to be ahead of the curve don’t you think? Hopefully, a growing number of you agrimarketers out there are jumping onto the online bandwagon. Your customers are already there. Yes, farmers too. But how many of you still can’t grasp the concept of what a blog is or Twitter? Agencies, how are you really serving your client’s needs when you don’t understand the concepts much less the technology? Is pasting a paragraph of text on a web page a blog? No. But I still see some of these weak attempts to “get with it.”

I know that there are many of you who get it. But there are still a lot who don’t. Take a look at this excerpt from a story on AdWeek about an IBM consumer research project.

NEW YORK Ad agencies are years behind in catching up to digitally savvy consumers who are moving their media habits online more quickly than expected, according to new global research from the IBM Institute for Business Value.

The first thing that popped into my mind was, “than who expected?” It has seemed obvious for years that consumers (farmers) were moving media habits online. Even ag industry research like the USDA NASS surveys and NAFB has shown this.

IBM found that between 2007 and 2008, the proportion of consumers saying they used social-networking tools soared to 60 percent from 33 percent; for online and portable music services it more than doubled to 46 percent; mobile Internet nearly tripled to 41 percent; and access to mobile music and video quadrupled to 35 percent.

In contrast, 80 percent of the ad executives interviewed expect the industry to be at least five years away from being able to deliver cross-platform advertising, encompassing sales, delivery, measurement and analysis.

Five years away from being able to effectively place your client advertising dollars? I’m not sure I get that. I think what it means is that social networking and new media channels of communication don’t fit into nice little computer programs with pretty charts and graphs. It would be nice if it did but while we wait for people who are way geekier than me to come up with all that, how about getting started and investing your media dollars where your customers are? Spend a portion of it at least and start to figure it out before someone else does and you’re wondering where all your business went.

Most new media advertising is less expensive than traditional media. Is it possible that the fear that “we won’t make as much money” is keeping some back from investing in it?

You might want to take a look at the IBM research which is available online:

Beyond advertising: Choosing a strategic path to the digital consumer (pdf)
By Saul Berman, Bill Battino and Karen Feldman

Succeeding in the new economic environment: Focus on value, opportunity, speed (pdf)
By Saul Berman, Steven Davidson, Sara Longworth and Amy Blitz

via Steve Rubel (his Twitter feed btw)

Marketing Techniques, Past and Present

Posted on March 16, 2009 by Amanda

I was on the road last week for Spring Break, and I spent some time in the secluded Black Hills in Western South Dakota. If you have never vacationed there, I highly recommend it. You will have the opportunity to explore the Badlands, Black Hills and Spearfish Canyon. Test your luck at Deadwood, hike to see Roughlock Falls, salute our presidents at Mount Rushmore and feel the spirit of prairie at Crazy Horse.

As I played tourist for a few days, I read something at Mount Rushmore that had me thinking. Sculptor Gutzom Borglum had a vision to engrave the faces of four great American faces into a granite rock in the legendary Black Hills. The museum exhibit explained Borglum’s efforts to gain public support for this privately funded project. To help earn popularity with the nation’s people, Borglum made posters to advertise the dynamite blasts. Everyone was invited to watch the explosions.

Today, we don’t use homemade posters and dynamite to reach our audiences. Instead, we focus on utilizing social networking tools to enhance our brand, spread the word about our causes and promote our work. I’m wondering what your favorite marketing tools are? In comparing the techniques of the past to the methods of today, it’s quite an impressive change.

Corn Farmers Coalition Launched

Posted on March 2, 2009 by Chuck

Corn Farmers Coalition After last week’s announcement about the Global Renewable Fuels Alliance and Tom Buis moving from NFU to Growth Energy I thought we now had plenty of organizations promoting not only renewable fuels but corn in particular since it is such an integral part of biofuels production today.

However, we now have another new organization. This time it’s the Corn Farmers Coalition.

When corn prices spiked last year, big food manufacturers and oil companies claimed there wasn’t enough corn to feed everyone and make ethanol.

Now we know that was not true. There was always plenty of corn to make ethanol, not to mention corn to export and to feed ourselves and the cattle, chickens and pigs we raise on corn. And the federal Agriculture Department says there will be plenty of corn to meet demand for the foreseeable future.

So corn farmers from 10 states, including Illinois, and the industry’s trade group — the National Corn Growers Association — formed the Corn Farmers Coalition (CFC) to educate policymakers in Washington.

The coalition today launches a Web site (www.CornFarmersCoalition.org), an advertising campaign and a statistical abstract on America’s biggest crop.

“Washington needs to know that corn farmers are using some of the most advanced technologies on the planet to do more with less — to grow more corn using fewer resources every year,” said Mark K. Lambert, Director of the Corn Farmers Coalition. “American corn farmers, the majority of them small business people, are among the most productive in the world.”

Basic Outreach Methods

Posted on February 23, 2009 by Amanda

So often, we try to create elaborate marketing campaigns using the latest technologies and marketing techniques. While there are countless new and exciting ways to spread the message about your place of business, sometimes the most simple ways have been used for years. Maybe that’s why they are still around in spite of the latest and greatest ways to do the same job.

This thought occured to me over the weekend when I attended the 2009 SDSU Alpha Gamma Rho – Block & Bridle Steer Show at the Swiftel Center in Brookings, S.D. With over 120 cattle exhibited representing six different states, it was an exciting time to look at a great number of quality cattle. Aside from looking at livestock and visiting with area beef producers, I had time to ask the show chairpersons how they put on this event every year.

I discovered that this cattle event is run completely by sponsorship dollars and volunteer helpers. A 50/50 raffle helped raise money for the agriculture sorority, Sigma Alpha. Hand-made signs hanging around the ring gave credit to sponsors, 90% of the money coming from ranchers not companies. A radio played and a local commercial came on playing an ad for a bull sale coming up. In all of its simplicity, these marketing and management methods were the ingredients for a successful agriculture event.

As we kick off another week, I want to talk about the marketing strategies you have tried in the past. Are you pursuing advanced technologies to spread the word about your respective product? Are you Tweeting, Facebooking and blogging? Are you sticking with the traditional word-of-mouth approach? Or, are you using the basics of posters, radio spots and television commercials? I’m excited to hear about your marketing strategies!

Truth In Advertising Applies To New Media

Posted on February 16, 2009 by Chuck

I recently consulted with an ag group that wants to start using new media, specifically a blog and podcast. During the discussion I heard that someone would, “ghost write for . . .” That immediately set off the warning signal in my mind. I encouraged them to reconsider this. To start with, there are plenty of examples of a company or organization that has done this and been caught publicly. The result is complete loss of credibility. I’ve been asked to ghost write on blogs and I refuse. I hope no one reading would either.

Besides credibility there are other issues of liability. One of the factors that drive the success of a personal or company or product blog is open, honest transparency. Interestingly, this issue came up when my upcoming NAMA panel had a conference call. We were pointed to the Federal Trade Commission’s proposed “Guides Concerning the Use of
Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising” (pdf). The comment period on this has been extended to March 2. It was originally supposed to close on January 31.

In it you’ll find specific references to blogging and bloggers: 1. Bloggers personal liability (see page 13); and 2. Examples of bloggers in the proposed changes to the Guides (see page 69-70, example #5; pages 84-86, examples #7, 8, and 9). Thanks to Courtney Yuskis, Country Living Association, for the heads up.

I think the bottom line is to be honest and open. That’s one way to win your audience over.

Super Bowl Ads

Posted on February 2, 2009 by Amanda

Whether or not you’re a fan of football, I’m sure that many of you took part in a Super Bowl party last night. I met up with some college friends to watch the game, laugh at the commercials and eat lots of food! Although I’m not an avid football guru (I always cheer for the underdog), I LOVE watching the commercials because I feel there is something to learn from corporate business that have millions of dollars to utilize their creativity and market their products. I heard that one commercial during the Super Bowl costs $3 million for 30 seconds! Amazingly, I heard that Budweiser had seven minutes of commercials.

Fox Sports on MSN provided the Top 10 Best and Top 10 Worst commercials of the evening. If you missed the event, let me recap: Budlight, Doritos, Bridgestone, Monster, Career Builder, Coke Zero, Cash4Gold and Hulu took the top spots. Be sure to take some time to view these advertisements.

When thinking about marketing, it’s important to remember brand enhancement. Some of the commercials were funny, creative and artistic, but I didn’t remember the brand name after it was over. Some of the best marketing strategies are simple and clean. You don’t need $3 million to be successful in your own marketing efforts, but you do have to be smart and creative. So what are your best and worst marketing experiences? Have you ever flopped? Did your product take off after a certain campaign? Curious minds want to know…

Successful Farming/John Deere Win min

Posted on October 5, 2008 by Chuck

Successful Farming Min Award Successful Farming magazine and John Deere have received some recognition for their integration of web based communications content from the min magazine Integrated Marketing Awards.

Successful Farming magazine and John Deere have been awarded the min Integrated Marketing Awards First Place honor in Web/Online Bundling for their partner program, CropTechTour. min’s Integrated Marketing Awards salute the campaigns, ongoing programs and innovative people who’ve raised the bar on magazine marketing programs. The CropTech Tour program was recognized for in the integrated web content, video, print integration, and customer interaction throughout the program.

Successful Farming was also a Merit winner in the Events Category for the Super Powering Profits program, which was sponsored by Asgrow. For a complete list of finalists and winners, please see the min website.

According to Jana Reiker, Sales Development Manager, Successful Farming, “For the 2nd straight year, SF has won a First Place Award at the min Integrated Marketing Awards in New York. The min (media industry news) awards included some tough national consumer publications in our category, and Successful Farming represented the Agriculture Industry very well.

It’s been a pleasure to work with Barry Nelson at John Deere; Kelly Schwalbe & Leigh Ann Cleaver from BCS; and our Editors, John Walter and Jeff Caldwell; along with a great partnership with the Certified Crop Association members on the CropTechTour, and see this program be so successful and continue to grow with our Agriculture Online audience.”

AAEC Launches National Media Campaign

Posted on September 25, 2008 by Chuck

Wow. Just when you thought we couldn’t possibly have any more new organizations working on the whole food and fuel thing, here comes another one. It’s the American Ag and Energy Council and they’re starting a new national media campaign using radio. I’m glad it’s available on their website too. Now if we could just get all these groups to pool their money and resources . . .

Today, the American Ag and Energy Council (AAEC) launched a national radio campaign featuring a “Food and Fuel Update.” The first installment of the “Food and Fuel Update” featuring commentary from Mark Pearson highlights the enormous cost of our nation’s dependence on foreign oil and the financial benefits of ethanol.

The ads will be running on nationally syndicated shows including Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, in addition to local affiliates throughout the United States.

Wendy Wintersteen, Dean of the Iowa State University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Co-Chair of AAEC said, “This is the first in a series of efforts to educate the American public on the positive benefits agriculture plays in their daily lives.” Wintersteen continued, “AAEC’s main objective is to promote the common link between all sectors of modern agriculture and energy through a positive and educational medium.”

You can listen to the first program here.

RuralClassifieds.com

Posted on September 22, 2008 by Chuck

Paul Soli, Web Biz, Inc., asked to bring RuralClassifieds.com to you attention. I have done so. Let him know what you think. They have topic specific shopping sites internally like, BullShop.com.

http://www.ruralclassifieds.com/ offers no cost ads to Farmers, Ranchers, Businesses and Residents of Rural America; and currently, users have over 9,000 ads running on its 5 websites.

Many users say this site is similar to Crag’s List, only it offers many more applicable
ad categories which better serve the advertising and marketing needs of Rural America.

New TV Ads From Renewable Fuels Association

Posted on September 22, 2008 by Chuck

RFA Ethanol Ad The Renewable Fuels Association, a ZimmComm client, has some cool new tv ads out.

America’s ethanol industry has a fantastic story to tell. Beginning this week, that story is being told to millions of Americans as the Renewable Fuels Association launches two ads very clearly stating the benefits of today’s domestic renewable fuels industry.

Entitled “Faces” and “Places,” the two 30-second spots feature real Americans from Hereford, Texas who are actively leading America toward a more secure energy future. In “Faces,” local Hereford residents explain why ethanol is critical to America’s energy future. In “Places,” the geographic diversity of America’s ethanol industry is on display as the self-proclaimed “Beef Capital of the World” is also home to two ethanol biorefineries. As the Mayor puts it, Hereford is “the ethanol capital of Texas.”

“America’s ethanol producers are on the leading edge of an energy evolution in this country, but far too often aren’t given the credit they deserve,” said Renewable Fuels Association President Bob Dinneen.

Here’s Places:

Places – TV Ad from GoodFuels on Vimeo.

A Sweet Surprise From Corn Refiners

Posted on September 22, 2008 by Chuck

I love these new ads about high fructose corn syrup from the Corn Refiners Association. The fact that they have to make them shows what kind of an ignorant consuming public we have that doesn’t want to take responsibility for what or how much it eats. Here’s one of them:

Find more videos like this on AdGabber

You can get a sense of where AdGabber stands on the issue from comments they wrote like this one:

The spots have already generated moody debate on YouTube, but their real targets are housewives, in some ways the most influential force in the fight against high fructose corn syrup — which, sure, may be fine in moderation. The problem is, it’s in just about everything: most snack foods, ready-made baked goods, drinks, ice cream, some condiments, and even bread.

You can get the sweet facts here.

From AdGabber via AdRants.

Printing Potato Goodness

Posted on August 20, 2008 by Chuck

Potato Goodness The U.S. Potato Board has launched a little bit of spud goodness in a national print campaign.

The U.S. Potato Board launched a national print advertising campaign today as part of its continued effort to educate consumers about the nutritional benefits of potatoes. “Peel Back the Truth” inquisitively tackles potato nutrition myths and quickly reveals, with the swoop of a potato peeler, the healthy truth inside a fresh potato.

The new campaign is a continuation of the U.S. Potato Board’s (USPB) consumer nutrition education campaign that began in 2004 when low-carb diets were at their peak. Fad diets come and go but the nutritious potato stands tall.

Wacko Ad From HSUS

Posted on August 9, 2008 by Chuck

HSUS Ad I noticed a story in the latest issue Missouri Cattlemen’s Association, Prime Cuts, e-newsletter about a stupid (my word) ad from the Humane Society. Yes, we know these wackos have been trying to connect animal agriculture to global warming. Of course, there is no global warming issue, especially not a man made one. You’ll notice that most environmental wackos have quit using that term and have now gone to “climate change” as their term of choice. This way it can be getting colder, warmer, dryer, wetter and it’s all bad and they’re covered.

According to the newsletter story the HSUS is running the ad this month in national magazines targeting teen girls. If you read the copy of the ad you find out the true goal of the HSUS which is to reduce meat in our diets by using scare tactics based on complete lies. These wackos are definitely a huge enemy of anyone involved in animal agriculture. It’s one thing to have an opinion but to deliberately deceive people with lies to get their money so they can lie to more people is really tragic and sad. Unfortunately, the HSUS is using false data from the FAO, which has turned into a wacko group too. I used to think FAO actually was a credible organization, but not anymore.

It’s too bad that so many people are willing to believe what they see and hear without even bothering to think about it and look for real science based facts. But that’s why it’s very important for any of us involved in agriculture to be involved in efforts to present the truth and reach consumers using the same tactics as these wackos.