A22-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, June 22, 2002
Great Lakes Forum Hosts Brand Marketing Discussions
MICHELLE KUNJAPPU
Lancaster Farming Staff
STATE COLLEGE (Centre
Co.) Brand marketing of agri
cultural products was the focus
in a sessopm last week at the
Great Lakes Forum on Agricul
ture hosted by Pennsylvania De
partment of Agriculture and con
ducted at the Nittany Lion Inn.
Before the brand marketing
discussion, Lee Swenson, Farm
ers Union, addressed agricultural
water issues. Following the
branding discussion, Claude Lav
igne, director. Animal Products,
Canada, and Bobby Acord, ad
ministrator, USDA-APHIS, gave
presentations on animal and
plant health topics.
The topic of branding was put
forth as forum participants
about 40 attendees from across
the Great Lakes region could
weigh the options of using a
brand on a regional basis, specif
ically, branding apples from the
Great Lakes region.
John Lord, professor of food
marketing at St. Joseph’s Univer
sity, opened the discussion by
John Wells, San Francis
co, Calif., was a keynote
speaker.
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presenting his ideas about the
value of a brand.
“It’s all about communication.
A brand means something,” he
said. “We’re not speaking in
terms of commodities.”
A brand, said Lord, could “de
fine your business as providing a
healthful, satisfying eating expe
rience.”
A brand is not a label, warned
Lord. “A label identifies, but a
brand involves values,” he said.
“A brand is promises we make to
the buyer.
“What we really want is cus
tomer loyalty. They have an im
plicit understanding about what
they’re going to get out of that re
lationship.”
Additionally “there is no point
in putting a label on unless you
can do something different,” he
said. “You have to give the con
sumer a reason to buy the prod
uct. A brand is not a panacea.
Success requires effective market
ing, innovation, quality, and con
sistency.”
A brand for produce, he said,
would be a team effort. “If you’re
going to get that great product in
consumers’ hands, mouths, and
stomachs, it’s a team effort from
the farm all the way to the table.”
Also giving ideas about brand
marketing was Jon Wells, owner
of Jon Wells Associates, a design,
branding, and marketing firm in
San Francisco, Calif.
A brand attracts consumers to
old favorites but also attracts
them to new products. “A brand
increases what we’re willing to
pay for a product we trust,” he
said. “Shoppers have become
brand savvy, brand accepting,
and maybe even brand demand
ing” because the “cornerstone of
branding is a promise of quality.”
Wells has designed a brand for
a vegetable broker, and noted
that a brand can promise that the
product is “safe, that is supports
small farms, that it’s fresh and
has big taste,” as in the case of
the brand he designed for the
California company.
“What I’m trying to do here is
give you a language for what you
are already doing,” he said.
One example of a brand for
produce is the familiar “Chiqui
ta” label, which was introduced
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in 1944 and began appearing on
stickers on bananas in 1963.
The apple industry, which now
has a large variety of apples, had
begun to place PLU stickers on
the apples to help distinguish the
different prices and varieties of
apples. With the success of the
Chiquita brand on bananas, it
wasn’t long before logos and
brands began appearing on the
stickers.
Additionally, the “salad revo
lution” paved the way for brand
ing produce when mixed lettuce
began appearing in bags as a
value-added product with
splashy graphics.
A brand can help create an
emotional bond, he said. “When
consumers know a region, they
become attached to it and the
Speakers at the recent Great Lakes Convention included, from left, Don Armock,
Michigan; Tom O’Neill, Ontario; John Rice, Adams County; and George Lament, Albion,
New York.
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people that grow the products in
it,” he said. Not only does this
help create consumer loyalty in
purchasing, but they are more
willing to “forgive a misstep” in
quality control, should the prob
lem arise.
A brand that covers a specific
regional area is also beneficial.
With the pooling of a larger
amount of growers, dollars are
more available to promote the
brand and get the product on
shelves, according to Wells. Also
there are less brand choices for
consumers.
“However you give up individ
ual identity and individual con
trol,” he said. Also individual
quality failure impacts the entire
group.
“There is an opportunity for
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all of you to thrive in an environ
ment of competitive harmony,”
Wells said.
Following Wells was speaker
George Lamont, general manager
of a 600-acre fruit farm in Albi
on, N.Y., and executive director
of the New York State Horticul
tural Society.
Lamont noted the increase of
apple production in countries
such as China, which produces
five times the amount of apples
the U.S. produces. With the com
bination of foreign and domestic
challenges to the industry, and
the decreasing share of consumer
dollars (an apple grower gets 13
percent per dollar of apple prod
uct sold), the industry needs to
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