Cargill ad campaign highlights turkey growers

With a wealth of information – and few barriers to entry for controversial voices – on the internet, production agriculture is under greater scrutiny than ever. Companies like Cargill are now challenged to make their operations more accessible and relatable to the average shopper or risk losing business.

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A new effort by Cargill to close the gap between farmers and consumers involved a pair of Dutch muralists who used spray paint to create this larger-than-life mural of a boy and a poult on Robertson’s barn. | Photo by Austin Alonzo
A new effort by Cargill to close the gap between farmers and consumers involved a pair of Dutch muralists who used spray paint to create this larger-than-life mural of a boy and a poult on Robertson’s barn. | Photo by Austin Alonzo

Glenn Robertson’s old barn stands on a ridge overlooking the distant Missouri and Osage River bottoms in rural Missouri, a bit down the road from where he grows turkeys for Cargill. The family’s farmed the picturesque land near the town of Loose Creek, Missouri, since 1944 raising cattle and turkeys.

In 2015, as part of a new effort to close the gap between farmers and consumers, Cargill Inc. sent a video crew and a pair of Dutch muralists to Robertson’s farm. Using spray paint, the duo painted a larger than life mural of a boy and a poult on Robertson’s barn. The video on the painting, published in May 2015, shows Robertson’s home, family and farm. He speaks about his pride in continuing the family business and his respect for the animals. He’s emotional as he sees the artwork, with a tribute to his late father, for the first time.

The video is part of an extended campaign by Cargill, one of the world’s largest private companies and the 3rd largest turkey producer in the U.S. according to WATT PoultryUSA's 2016 Top Turkey Company survey, to make its 700 independent family farmers the face of its brand. Jan Hood, head of marketing for Cargill’s Honeysuckle White and Shady Brook Farms brands, said the campaign reflects mounting research suggesting consumers want to know more about how their food is produced and who produces it.

“Sharing their stories helps consumers understand the work that’s done behind the scenes to deliver a meaningful, quality and safe product,” Hood said.

Glenn Robertson

Glenn Robertson stands inside his turkey house in Loose Creek, Missouri. | Austin Alonzo

The campaign is a response to consumer clamor for a transparent food industry. With a wealth of information – and few barriers to entry for controversial voices – on the internet, production agriculture is under greater scrutiny than ever. Companies like Cargill are now challenged to make their operations more accessible and relatable to the average shopper or risk losing business.

Consumers demand a transparent food supply

According to the Center for Food Integrity (CFI), a nonprofit organization dedicated to growing trust in the food system, consumers think “big” is bad.  Cargill is listed as a member of the CFI’s group, “A New Conversation about Food Leadership Partners,” alongside ConAgra Foods, Tyson Foods Inc., Smithfield Foods, and other companies in the food and retail business.

The group’s 2015 consumer trust study concluded production-scale agriculture producers are generally perceived as being untrustworthy and more likely to put profits ahead of principals. Small, family farmers, like Robertson and others highlighted in Cargill’s campaign, are seen as more trustworthy to consumers who likely have never spent time on a farm.

The same report concluded transparency is key to building consumer trust in the product and the brand. Consumers want story-telling and concrete examples of business practices, not policy explanations.

“Practices are a reflection of a company’s internal motivation; they are a demonstration of a company’s values in action,” the report said. “Demonstrating shared values is the foundation for building trust.”

It’s no surprise Cargill’s transparency-focused marketing shows pastoral shots of the farms and the animals, domestic images of farmers and their families, and superimposed text promoting independent farmers “responsibly raising turkeys with love.” The farmers talk about their ties to the land and their responsibility to the birds and the consumer.

Turkey farm Loose Creek, Missouri

Natural light flows freely into Robertson's barn. | Austin Alonzo

These images stand in stark contrast to the blurry clandestine videos of crowded, dark and dirty poultry houses pushed online and through social media by activists.

“Transparency can help inform, communicate actions, and if done right, can help demonstrate the continuous work that’s being done over time,” Hood said. “When a consumer has multiple interactions with a brand, they are making a determination if it is consistent and aligns with the consumer’s desires.

“If those attributes work in concert, it helps build loyalty. Through these efforts, misinformation can be more easily refuted.”

Conception and execution of the campaign

Cargill launched its farmer-focused campaign more than a year ago. Hood said the turkey brands saw an opportunity to share the stories of its growers and let consumers get a peek into the daily lives of farmers.The 2016 holiday campaign, which focused on the Thanksgiving and Christmas periods, continued to produce videos profiling turkey farmers and invited news media around the nation to visit local farmers. Food bloggers visited turkey farms as well and prepared holiday dishes inspired by their experience.

The videos were adapted into television advertisements and were broadcast the two weeks leading up to Thanksgiving in November and Christmas in December 2016. Another commercial will air in January and February 2017.

The turkey brands also display in-store advertising at the meat case and in select in-store print media. Point-of-sale materials and packaging for Honeysuckle White and Shady Brook Farms also carries the farmer theme and its message “honest, simple, turkey.”

Much of the campaign is geared toward the online audience. Consumers are increasingly looking for information about their food online, and are putting more weight into comments made by connections on social media. Cargill is incorporating digital advertising throughout the campaign and is using social media pages on Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram to spread its message. It’s also established a website focused on its farmers, 700reasons.com, and using its brand websites to answer questions about its products and practices.

The company said its television and online commercial campaign featuring videos of turkey farmers reached 54 million viewers during the holiday season. More than 547,000 people like the turkey brands’ Facebook pages. More than 1,000 follow its “Honest Turkey” accounts on Pinterest and Instagram. The brands’ YouTube videos have more than 6,000 views. Cargill plans on ramping up the Honest Turkey campaign in early 2017, and there should be much more social media activity related to the campaign in the coming months. 

“At Cargill, we want to be proactive in sharing our stories with consumers. We have a great story to tell, and know that no one else would be able to tell it better than us,” Hood said. “In today’s world, where gaining access to traditional communications channels can be challenging, we are figuring out ways to communicate our story via other channels such as social media, the internet, bloggers, etc. Simply stated, we need to create our own ‘journalism.’”

CFI CEO Charlie Arnot said Facebook is one of the most dominant channels consumers use to get information, and they are more inclined to find information that aligns with their values based on their friends and their activities. Getting online, he said, is a key method to better interact with consumers and help them understand the industry.

Turkeys at a farm in Loose Creek, Missouri. | Austin Alonzo
Consumers want to see what an actual farm operation looks like in order to build trust in the food supply. | Austin Alonzo

The continuing campaign

Hood said Cargill will continue to focus on sharing farmers’ stories and demonstrate the transparency the consumer demands. The message will continue to be refined through market research and input from retail consumers, including sales performance.

When asked if other poultry companies should try and adopt a similar approach Hood said it’s an individual business decision that should “be made through firm understanding of what your consumers want and what they care about.”

“Ultimately, consumers will choose products based on what is important to them.”

 

 

Learn more about Cargill and other Top Poultry Companies: www.WATTAgNet.com/directories/80

 

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