Needed Research on the Effectiveness of Farm Products Promotions

Abstract

FARMERS are becoming interested in the possibilities of promotion and advertising. Of course, this interest is not entirely new. For several decades, farm products have been advertised and promoted not only by processors and distributors, but also by farmer-cooperatives, trade associations, and occasionally by state governments. Farm groups have had some interest in programs of this kind. But their main interest has been in the efficiency of production and to a considerable extent in the efficiency of marketing. Until recently the typical farmer did not concern himself a great deal about the demand creation. This situation is rapidly changing. The enormous surpluses of farm products in recent years, together with the desire to avoid effective production controls, have dramatized the need for expanding markets for farm products. To some extent this can be done by subsidies such as those now being used to expand exports and to divert surplus farm products into lower-order uses. But the American farmer needs, and knows he needs, to find bigger, commerical, nonsubsidized markets for his products. This is probably the main reason for the current interest in so-called self-help programs, such as those proposed by the dairy and turkey industries. One feature of these proposals is a sort of check-off system through which (if a majority of the industry approved) each farmer would be compelled to contribute to a fund to be used for research, advertising, and promotion. A promotional program for wool and lamb is already under way, financed by funds withheld from the payments made to sheep producers under the Wool Act. What kind of research in promotion does the farmer most want and need? I believe his main interest at present is in economic research, rather than in psychological research. Specifically the farmer wants solid statistical facts about the costs of various kinds of promotion, and about their dollars-and-cents effects upon farm income. Psychologists have been doing a lot of exciting work in motivation research and depth interviewing.' Doubtless this kind of research is glamorous, and profitable to advertisers. It could greatly change consumer demands and methods of food marketing. But my own personal belief is that most of the basic trends in consumer preferences for food are desir-