Agricultural News
'Responsible Beef' Program Seeks to Build Personal Relationships with Consumers
Thu, 05 Dec 2013 12:52:16 CST
Jim Miles is the marketing manager for fed cattle with Merck Animal Health and he's also working with a project they are calling "Responsible Beef."
"Resposible Beef is a campaign we rolled out last spring to help cattle feeders and cattlemen across the country to find their voice to talk to consumers about beef," Miles said.
The campaign differs from other industry initiatives to communicate directly with consumers in a very important way, he said.
"To really talk to a consumer about beef, if you talk about the science of raising cattle and blah, blah, blah, the consumer doesn't hear you. They hear kind of like Charlie Brown's teacher-when the teacher talks you really don't hear what they say. So, in this Responsible Beef campaign, what we do is we go and take it to a different level. The idea is that you need to connect with that consumer on a personal level, a human level, before you have a conversation about the four pillars we have in Responsible Beef which are: cattle, land, community and your business. You need to connect on a personal basis first where that person understands that you're human, too, and they develop a trust and understanding and you become their expert when it comes to beef."
When cattle producers and feeders come to their seminars, Miles said, he asks them to choose who they want to target with their message about beef. Some choose to communicate on a very personal level with their friends and neighbors and others seek to make contacts with the news media, chefs, doctors and other professionals to become ambassadors for beef. Miles said the key is for those in the beef industry to make personal, lasting relationships so that when some issue comes up about beef, the consumer thinks about the trusted relationship he or she has with his friend inside the industry rather than a disembodied message whose validity can't be ascertained. He said many of those they work with have chosen to take their message far and wide through the social media like Facebook and Twitter.
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Network- but is also a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR below for today's show- and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
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