Time for a fresh produce checkoff

We haven't had a plethora of votes on the Fruits and Veggies - More Matters blog question this week, (where's the passion, people?) but early returns suggest that the launch of the More Matters campaign met expectations of Fresh Talk readers. Please vote on the poll question soon, as it will close in a couple of days.

Regarding the More Matters campaign, I believe it has created a brand message that is sustainable. That is, there is no danger the government will come out with dietary guidelines recommending reduced consumption of fruits and vegetables.
The message itself communicates that eating more fresh produce is always a good idea, just like one should always "drink more water." It's a message that doesn't carry a lot of latent appeal by itself. However, The umbrella message of "More Matters" will be supported by other promotion themes such as" healthy" as soon as next year, according to PBH president Elizabeth Pivonka. Perhaps "tasty" will also get a turn? Importantly, the Foundation is committed to tracking the public awareness of the brand message in future consumer surveys.

I found an interesting article about generic promotion on the Web. The influence of generic promotion on brand preference by Amitav Chakravarti and Chris Janiszewski provided context to the issue.

Some background grafs on generic promotion:

"In 1937, Congress enacted the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act. The goal of the legislation was to establish marketing rules for farm commodities and to encourage the marketing of these commodities via industry committees. Producers of commodities were required to remit a small percentage of their proceeds to commodity boards that pooled the resources and used them to promote consumption. As of 1990, 30 commodity boards had been established by Acts of Congress.
During the 1990s, rulings by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California weakened legislation that forced producers to make mandatory contributions for generic advertising. In December 1993, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) almond marketing order and, in June 1995, the USDA nectarine and peach marketing order were found unconstitutional. The court reasoned that generic advertising had not been shown to be more successful at increasing primary demand than brand advertising. Thus, growers should be able to use their money to advertise individually. In response to the findings of the Ninth Circuit Court, the Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 authorized check-off generic advertising programs. The legislation includes a congressional finding that generic advertising programs are in the national public interest and vital to the welfare of the agricultural economy. Moreover, the legislation states that generic advertising programs "never were designed or intended to restrict, prohibit, or replace the advertising and promotion activities of any individuals or groups of individuals" (Becker 1996, p. 1). These check-off programs can be initiated by the USDA and, if approved in a referendum of industry participants, can require producers to "pay assessments which are used to fund generic (as opposed to branded) promotion, research, advertising, and related activities designed to increase consumption of that commodity" (Becker 1996, p. 1). As of 2001, 13 of the 20 national check-off programs (e.g., dairy, fluid milk, beef, soybeans, cotton, pork) authorized by Congress were active, as were approximately 35 commodity programs being run by state organizations (e.g., apples, avocados, orange juice.)

The research concludes:

"More than a billion dollars is spent annually on generic advertisements that promote the consumption of commodity goods. Generic advertising is designed to increase primary demand, or the "size of the pie," without affecting selective demand, or the "share of the pie." We find evidence to the contrary generic advertising increases the consumer's sensitivity to changes in price and systematically alters brand preferences. These effects of generic advertising can be attributed to the tendency of generic ads to change the relative importance of the attributes used to evaluate the brands. The results have implications for the public policy issue of how to effectively implement generic advertising without differentially benefiting certain brands and the managerial issue of how to integrate generic and brand advertising in order to achieve product category and brand differentiation goals. "

TK: My first instinct is to say the fresh produce industry has for too long been blind to the opportunity to create a national checkoff program for fresh fruits and vegetables. What would generic promotion of fresh produce look like if there was a mandatory assessment on all produce marketers? The National Cattlemen's Beef Association in 2005 had a budget of about $62 million to carry out checkoff funded promotions for beef. Compare that to the $5-6 million the Produce for Better Health Foundation typically has at its disposal. Some would argue that generic promotion ( including the authors of the research cited above) would make it harder for brand marketers to differentiate their products. Generic advertising also may increase responsiveness to price and reduce consumer information about non-advertised traits. Despite those limitations and reservations, I think the industry needs to field a generic promotion campaign that is representative with beef and milk (about $60 million and $100 million, respectively). Generic promotion raises visibility and helps define the message that consumers associate with fresh produce. In my view, the only way to fund an annual promotion effort that would invest $40 million to $50 million in consumer promotions is with a mandatory checkoff program for fresh produce. It's time for industry leaders to make it happen.