At least Osborn & Barr only announced 2 new hires this time (saves time on posting). I will post a picture of Amy as soon as I get one. In this case they’re adding to their Kansas City office.
Benjamin Richey brings a combination of marketing and livestock experience to his new role as account executive for Intervet and National Pork Board at Osborn & Barr Communications. Most recently, he was the director of communications at the National Institute for Animal Agriculture (NIAA). He has also worked with the National Swine Registry and the National Pork Board. He received a bachelor of science in animal science and agricultural communication at Purdue University.
And also . . .
Amy McCrea joined Osborn & Barr in the new position of integrated marketing project coordinator for John Deere’s new dealer advertising program. Amy is the communications liaison for participating John Deere dealers, John Deere and the Osborn & Barr marketing team. Amy worked on new product introductions during her summer internship at John Deere in 2005 before completing her bachelor of science in agricultural business at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville. Amy has also interned for Farm Credit Services of Missouri and United States Congressman Sam Graves.
I’m Not Green With Envy
I wanted to use the photo but you’ll have to visit CNN.com to see it. A flourescent green pig. Somehow the thought of green ribs or a nice glowing green loin roast just doesn’t appeal to me. What am I talking about? A story on CNN about these Chinese scientists who are breeding transgenic pigs. From the story:
By injecting fluorescent green protein into embryonic pigs, a research team at the island’s leading National Taiwan University managed to breed three male transgenic pigs, said professor Wu Shinn-Chih of the university’s Institute and Department of Animal Science and Technology.
“There are partially fluorescent green pigs elsewhere, but ours are the only ones in the world that are green from inside out. Even their hearts and internal organs are green,” Wu said on Thursday.
I am so glad to hear that their’s are the only ones “green from inside out.” I really don’t think I want any others even a little bit green!
Wood You Visit The Idea Outpost
The latest agency to be added to our “Agencies” listing page is Idea Outpost. I just thought I’d bring them to your attention because they contacted me and I like their website. Also, I like working with wood, even though I don’t have any time to spend in my shop and don’t know when the last time was I used my tools. I bring this up because they use a wood theme and background. I like the clever quips like, “Staring at wood can be very inspirational. Or knot.” The site is clean, simple, easy to find all the information I want about them. This is the way a website should function.
Podcasting Applicable For Associations
A friend just sent me a copy of a recent article in Association Trends about podcasting. It requires registration to get to it. However, the one line that I can share from it is, “Not every hot new trend is applicable for assns, but podcasting certainly is!” Pretty enthusiastic endorsement for using the 2005 New Oxford American Dictionary word of the year. Even my hometown newspaper is writing about it.
Just like blogging gives an association or company a very personal way to communicate with it’s membership and customers, podcasting takes it a step further. Many associations are using audio in what I call a “traditional” way. They produce sound bites or interviews and make them available to “media” hoping it will get aired. They aren’t thinking of using it to communicate directly with their members. Why not? Your members and customers can get it and are. Are they hearing it from you?
The article I mentioned above was submitted by Gary LaBranche, who is CEO of the Association Forum of Chicagoland. Their mission statement is “Advance the professional practice of association management.” If you visit their site you’ll see that they’re podcasting. They’ve even created a nice page about podcasting. You can hear his latest podcast here.
There is one farm “association” that I know of that’s already podcasting and that’s the Missouri Beef Industry Council. It’s a weekly interview about their activities. Their members can hear it directly from them and they do. We produce this report and track the number of times it’s downloaded. According to the statistics there’s a growing number of listeners. You can see the link to their podcast on their homepage and on their blog.
It’s not a fad but is a hot trend. Like blogging I have to ask if you’re considering it. Are you? If so and you’d like to learn more about it you know who to call.
How To and Not To Blog
Yesterday I was working on my high school reunion blog and ran into a great example of how to use a blog. The background is that my hometown, Sarasota, FL was in the news because some homeless advocacy group voted it the meanest city in America. So I thought that would be good for a post on my reunion blog. As I did a quick Google search I found out that the City Manager of Sarasota has a blog and he had already written about the story. Great application and in looking at his blog, here’s a guy who gets it! Not only did he respond to a national story quickly but personally for anyone to read. This is open communication that doesn’t depend on how or if the media uses it. There’s a world of application of blogging like this in the agricultural world.
For example, let’s say that someone at the executive level at Diamond Pet Foods was blogging. It would have provided them with a great outlet to deal personally with the national level story that’s been running over the pets who have been poisoned by dog food containing aflatoxin. Instead they’ve done the “traditional” thing. They issued a news release and created a nice looking but pretty “corporate” website for the issue. It’s interesting that if you type their corporate website url into your browser they’ve got it automatically re-directing you to this “Recall Information” site. Then you can’t see their home site without a little work. Once you get to the home site in their news section is a “Customer Alert” which has a title of “Media Statement.” Is that for the media or is it meant to be a personal statement to their customers? If it’s the latter, it doesn’t come across as very personal. It’s not signed by any staff person and doesn’t provide a way to contact them. A blog would accomplish so much more. Their customers would be reading the personal statements of management who could be communicating frequently as this issue unfolds. It would allow those customers to give feedback and at least feel like they had an outlet for their emotion. This isn’t a story that’s going away quickly I’m afraid. On Friday I was speaking with someone on the phone who brought it up and made it clear how he would feel if it had been his pet that got sick or died. If you Google on the topic you’ll even find an attorney who’s advertising a site for people who want to sue the company!
Although I think Diamond Pet Foods could benefit from blogging they would still have to have someone who is capable and willing to do it. I am consulting with a number of companies and organizations about blogging and it’s the first thing that needs to be considered. What you don’t want is to create a blog and then not post anything. For example, I was thrilled to see that the National Association of Wheat Growers had started the NAWG Blog “Commentary by NAWG President Sherman Reese.” However, the last post showing is from August 4, 2005. In fact, there’s only 3 posts on the blog. Not good. There’s been so many things that could have been written about on the site like, personal comments about trade, travel, staff changes, the upcoming grain congress, etc. I’ve got to believe the members want to know what the CEO thinks and what he’s doing.
Blogging isn’t for everyone but it is a very effective communications tool in today’s web world and that includes the business of agriculture. Do you have plans to blog? Do you want to find out more about how it works? If so, please let me know and I’ll be happy to share what I’ve learned in over a year of doing it!
Play Combine Combat
I hope Cindy doesn’t read this post since it’s about a new online computer game (she plays them all the time!) called Combine Combat. It’s created by Successful Farming and John Deere. I played through all 4 levels. My first time final score was 407,494. How’s that stack up against your score? I can see in there user forum that a couple people have gotten higher that 600,000. I wonder who’s tops.
The game lets you pit yourself against your “rowdy” neighbor to see who can harvest the most corn and soybeans in a race against the weather, the markets and time. It’s fun, exciting and it’s drawing a lot of attention. The game is simple. Participants steer their combine with the arrow keys on their keyboard, trying to outpace their “rival” while avoiding various obstacles, including combine collisions. Collecting John Deere icons and featured items can boost speed and add bonus points. There are four levels of play, with total acres harvested, harvest yields and time in field, plus bonus points, contributing to a players net harvest profit. “We approached Successful Farming and said ‘We have some marketing goals, can you help us achieve them,’ ” said David Pauli, John Deere Advertising Creative Group Manager. “They came back to us with Combine Combat, which we felt was an exciting and very creative solution to our marketing challenge.”
In the first week of the game, the site monitored more than 17,000 plays. “People are already talking about their scores on our discussion sites”, Snyder said. “We’ve even got one guy who says he hit $600,000, which we didn’t think was possible.”
They claim the game is addicting. What do you think? In fact, what do you think about the idea of an online game as part of a marketing effort for a company like John Deere?
Being A Carnivore is Healthy
Maybe I’ve been hitting the keyboard too hard today but I’m getting hungry and this story isn’t helping things. I believe in meat as a part of a healthy diet so when I see a company with a name like The Healthy Carnivore my interest is peaked.
The natural meats e-tailer will take on the local butcher and mail order companies such as Omaha Steaks in an effort to change the way consumers think about and purchase meat. With its premium, all-natural, artisan-cut meats, including beef, chicken, pork and lamb, The Healthy Carnivore makes delicious natural meats available to anyone at anytime — for gift-giving and daily consumption. The Healthy Carnivore’s cut-to-order, free-range, grain-fed meats rival the taste and quality of other first-rate brands, but contain no hormones, antibiotics, or animal by-products. The Healthy Carnivore provides a sensible and delicious alternative to the grocer’s meat case and traditional mail-order catalogs. The Healthy Carnivore offers next-day delivery; fresh-frozen and beautifully presented.
I think it’s interesting to see that the company “was established in 2005, as a collaboration between Ken McLaughlin, a Web designer, health enthusiast and meat lover, and Jobbers Meat Packing, a renowned, 27-year-old packing and distribution company.” Ken sounds like my kind of guy!
Wichita Residents Embrace Ethanol
The Ethanol Promotion and Information Council has some promotion results to be proud of. This relatively new organization headed by Tom Slunecka just moved their offices to Omaha, NE. That hasn’t slowed them down any. The results of their promotional campaign in Wichita were just released today in the form of a Talking News Release on AgNewsWire.AgWired.com.
OMAHA, NE. (January 13, 2006 – AgNewsWire.AgWired.com) – Wichita, Kansas residents turned to ethanol-enriched fuel in record numbers this fall, according to recently released market data from a partnership promotion between Kwik Shop stores and the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council (EPIC).
According to Tom Slunecka (suh-Len-icka), EPIC executive director, the promotion first started by giving ethanol information to key leaders within the city, such as mechanics, auto dealers, politicians and community leaders. The information explained why ethanol is important to the city and how it would work in their automobiles and how it would clean the air. “This program was far more than just an advertising campaign, it was an integral part of the thought process within that town about how to maximize their economics from a regional basis as well as how to help their air quality there within their city.” (:16 ) (
epic-wichita-slunecka-cut3 (Full Release) (Word Doc)
Technology Updates On Growing Point
I just love it when an agribusiness site uses audio (and promotes it). That’s why it’s worth noting that the Pioneer, Growing Point, website has new audio file. I’m going to use their link to one so you can hear what it sounds like. This one is a technology update on “gene shuffling” by Bart Baudler.
You’ll need to subscribe to get into the Growing Point website if you haven’t already.
Who’s Listening To Podcasts
Here’s an interesting story on eMarketer on podcasting (via Sundog). They have a nice graph showing how there were only 1 million radio listeners who downloaded a podcast in 2004, 5 million in 2005 and it’s projected to be 9.3 million in 2006. They project on up to 62.8 million in 2010.
Interestingly they also quote some recent research (by Podtrac) that shows that although 78 percent of those who have downloaded podcasts are men, women are more likely to have listened to a podcast in the last week. I guess that means that us men do the work and the women do the listening. Sundog blogger Greg says in his post:
My wife and I recently took a thousand-mile car trip. About 80 percent of the time we listened to audio books or podcasts that had been downloaded to my iPod. Many of my friends listen to satellite radio when they travel. Right now we’re a minority, but as we see above, that minority is growing rapidly. The world is changing. Marketers had better change and adapt with it.
This year, 30 percent of all new cars will offer iPod integration. I predict this will rapidly approach 100 percent.
I couldn’t agree more.