I enjoyed the opportunity to attend the World Ag Expo in Tulare, CA last week and have to say that this show certainly lives up to its name with acres of exhibits, a world-class dairy industry presence and a large number of international visitors.

Paulsen Account Executive Heather Covrig joined me for the two-day visit to the show. Several of her clients were exhibiting including Grain States Soya (Soy Best), Ecolab and POET Nutrition.

Each of these clients reported lots of booth traffic with dairy producers much more optimistic than just one year ago. The outlook is good for improved profitability for the dairy industry—none too soon after a year of huge losses for these producers.

Another Paulsen client, Kubota Tractor Corporation, had a very impressive display of sub-compact and compact tractors, mid-size tractors, commercial and residential mowers, construction equipment and utility vehicles. Kubota’s new Compact Track Loader (CTL) was also on display and captured the attention of many who visited the Kubota exhibit.

As mentioned in a previous blog entry, we’re conducting a rather ambitious research effort to learn more about the media preferences and habits of today’s agricultural producers. At the Tulare show we surveyed a number of farmers to learn more about their preferred sources of ag production information and the steps they take in making buying decisions for key farm inputs, services and equipment. We’re learning some fascinating things. We’ll share our findings in a paper being developed by Kristi Moss, Paulsen media director.

In conjunction with this research, we’re doing a number of interviews with various agri-media representatives to gather their insights to current trends in ag communications. Special thanks to Jan Ford and Gary Vorpal of Hoard’s Dairyman, Dennis Duncan of Ag Alert and Chris Sidles of US Farm Data for sharing their thoughts with us during the World Ag Expo.

Ag communications are experiencing the same dramatic changes that we read about in the consumer and business-to-business sectors. We’re making a concerted effort to understand the meaning and impact of these changes and how they will affect our clients’ marketing programs.

Be watching for more information from us on this topic in the weeks ahead.

Kubota’s new Compact Track Loader (CTL) was the center of attention at the World Ag Expo in Tulare, CA. Pictured here (l to r), Greg Embury, Kubota’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing; Heather Covrig, Paulsen Marketing and Dr. Satoshi Iida, President of Kubota Tractor Corporation (USA).

Just back from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) annual meeting and trade show in San Antonio. This convention is one of my favorites and always an enjoyable time. I had an opportunity to meet with so many friends, clients and media representatives during my three-day visit. It was a nice break from the unusually hard winter we’re experiencing in the North Central states.

Everyone agrees that the business outlook is better than that of one year ago, but there still seems to be plenty of room for improvement. Many of my media friends note that advertisers are making shorter-term commitments—quarter by quarter, rather than annual...

A group of seven Paulsen-ites attended the Region III “Best of NAMA” awards banquet in Minneapolis last Thursday, and we were not at all disappointed with the results—six First Place Awards and five Merit Awards. Here’s a quick recap:

Merit Awards
New Product Introduction, Pet Medicus, Inc.
Advertising Campaign to Rural Lifestyle Audience, Kubota Tractor Corporation
Unique Print Advertising, WildBlue Communications
Internet Web Site, Educational Focus—Walters Gardens
Less Than Page Ad Series, Ridley Nutrition Solutions

First Place Awards
Customer...

I sat down to write a New Year’s Eve blog entry a week ago. It was a pretty emotional tirade. “Good riddance to 2009!—a miserable year for business, especially for those of us in marketing and advertising”, the first sentence stated.

I even had the national advertising industry statistics to prove my point:
• Ad spending down 12.9% (sharpest drop since the Great Depression)
• Ad agency revenue down 9.7%
• Ad agency staffing down 14% (76,300 jobs lost since November 2007)
• Media employment down 12.7% (newspapers and TV hardest...

The Corn Belt Chapter of NAMA held a panel discussion in Coralville, IA Thursday. The topic was Social Networking: Virtual & Word-of-Mouth Marketing Case Studies. Our own Sara Steever, VP of Digital Services, spoke along side Stephanie Liska, President of BeckAg, and Reid Travis, Social Media Manager, Panchero’s Franchise Corporation. Over 30 agrimarketers attended this session, which included a lively interchange of ideas and conversation. I continue to be amazed at the desire in the ag community to learn more about how this topic applies to overall marketing programs. Our thanks to Wendy Gady at Pohaku for the invitation and for moderating and organizing the event.