MorganMyers’ Clients Win Multiple 2022 Regional NAMA Awards

It’s award season. Every year, fellow agriculture marketing and communications professionals from around the country submit their best work to be judged by their peers in the National Agri-Marketing Association’s (NAMA) Best of NAMA awards. Awards are given first at a regional level and are a great way to see how our work stacks up against other Midwestern agencies and communicators. The best of the best then go on to national judging.

We are pleased to share several first place client wins. Those taking top honors included campaigns that spanned both ends of the farm-to-fork food chain. Awards were given for growing sales of high-end beef, raising awareness of a small but mighty soybean pest, talking with consumers about how their food is grown, and showcasing farmers’ role in building a more sustainable future. Here’s a quick recap of this year’s winning entries and how they created change for our clients.

Region III First Place NAMA Awards:

Iowa Premium: “A Better Way to Beef” Brand Launch

National Beef recently purchased Iowa Premium, a small, premium beef packing facility in Iowa. The company instituted a brand refresh to reinvigorate the Iowa Premium brand and tell its unique story. To bring their authentic narrative to life, we strive to help the National Beef sales team better understand Iowa Premium’s unique value proposition and enthusiastically sell their beef products.

This brand refresh came with an unforeseen challenge – the COVID-19 pandemic. To work around a remote workforce reality, we utilize a unique, memorable home delivery video brochure to bring the story to life and engage the sales team.

The SCN Coalition: Let’s Talk Todes Video Series

 Soybean cyst nematode (SCN) is the No. 1 yield-grabbing pathogen of the soybean crop in North America. Growers today still struggle to identify and control the pest. To raise awareness around the need for an active SCN management strategy, we work with the SCN Coalition to bring experts, soybean growers and the media together virtually for the “Let’s Talk Todes” video series.

The video series is promoted through digital ads, organic social media posts and via the SCN email newsletter – resulting in over 900K video views and 1.7M impressions.

Region IV First Place NAMA Awards:

Illinois Beef Association: Family Owned. Responsibly Raised. Close to Home. Video Campaign

Feeling good about the food we eat isn’t limited to only taste or nutritional value. Today’s consumers also consider whether their food choices are good for the planet. As consumers question the sustainability of animal protein sources like beef, the Illinois Beef Association seeks to build trust in family farmers (who operate 96% of all Illinois farms) and increase confidence in beef as a sustainable choice through a digital communications campaign.

A 60-second video showcasing how a local farm family raises sustainable beef is promoted to Chicagoland parents through social media, CTV and pre-roll advertising. The results included 738K video views and the Illinois Beef Association reinforcing beef as a sustainable protein source with young families.

Illinois Farm Families: Innovation Grows Here™ Docuseries

As you now know, today’s consumers are concerned about farm sustainability and the environmental impact of food from growing, processing and transporting food to the plastic and packaging to keep it fresh. But they’re not very familiar with how innovation, science and technology are being used on farms to improve key sustainability measures like reduced GHG emissions. To position Illinois farmers as part of the sustainability solution, we capitalize on the power of video through social media. Video is especially powerful as consumers retain 95% of a message after watching a video, as opposed to just 10% when reading text.

An Illinois farmer is paired with an industry or technical expert to talk about a specific environmental challenge and contributions to the solution in a documentary-style video series. Topics covered include bioplastics, planting pollinator habitat, sequestering carbon in soils, climate change and weather, among others. Promoting this video series through social media platforms and the website generates more than 1.5 million views. Check out other videos from the docuseries here.

Illinois Farm Families: Dietitian Virtual Cook Along

Registered dietitians are a top source for information about what foods to eat or avoid (International Food Information Council). They influence consumer attitudes and perceptions about food choices and the farm practices used to grow food today (non-GMO and organic for example). Additionally, a study by Corteva identified sustainability as the most important issue to both farmers and consumers. 

We work with Illinois Farm Families^® (IFF) to host a virtual group cooking event via Zoom where dietitians cook “alongside” Illinois farmers using ingredients they grew and raised. Guests were able to hear a variety of farmer perspectives, reinforcing the diversity of Illinois farms and the resiliency of farmers to make changes that support sustainability practices on their farms.

Illinois Farm Families: Watch Us Grow Website SEO Content Strategy

In today’s digital age, consumers rely heavily on online content to inform their decision-making process for things that impact everyday life, including their food choices. Illinois Farm Families, a trusted voice on food and farming information, wants to make this information easily accessible online. With 68% of online experiences beginning with a search engine, SEO was a priority in being found and establishing a credible resource that connected local farmers directly with those that have questions.

SEO keyword research and best practices become the primary driver of their website content strategy. Two educational blog posts are published per month and the homepage is refreshed monthly with timely and trending farming content. As a result, organic search becomes the No. 1 traffic driver for the website and receives more than 130K visitors. View the blog content that led to this success.

Illinois Soybean Association: Advertorial engages Illinois Farmer Community

Illinois Farm Families is a farmer-supported program through Illinois’ leading commodity organizations and associations, including Illinois Soybean Association, that strives to build consumer trust in local farmers. And while 45% of farmers strongly agree IFF is a worthwhile effort to build trust, 42% of Illinois farmers are unfamiliar with or only slightly familiar with Illinois Farm Families. We needed to build more awareness about the IFF program among Illinois farmers while demonstrating the program’s effectiveness.

We meet our audience where they are by creating a dedicated advertorial insert for the Illinois Soybean Association’s farmer-facing magazine, Illinois Field & Bean, which reaches 43,000 Illinois soybean farmers. The insert showcases the program’s most recent consumer campaign around farmer sustainability efforts, Innovation Grows Here™, and its impactful results.

We know that most Illinois soybean farmers also grow corn, allowing us to communicate checkoff program results and consumer trust-building initiatives happening in Illinois to a significant number of farmers.

We’re excited to see how these entries fare at the national competition this spring. In the meantime, if you’re looking for help with your communications challenges – from website design to video marketing to sales tools that get results – we’re here to help move you from where you are to where you want to be. Reach out to us and we’ll talk.