Telling an old message in a new way - the power of the ebook

Winning a pitch, that's the easy part. What really matters is how the target market responds to the campaign. In this case, farmers.

Farmers are a tough breed. Smart, cynical and wary of city folk, especially those of us touting slick advertising campaigns that pretend to understand them.

The Pasture Renewal Charitable Trust had been communicating the same message to farmers for years - that renewing pasture is the best way to drive productivity and increase profits. While awareness was growing, action wasn’t. They decided to see if a new agency could get the results they were after. We presented concepts for two campaigns, won the pitch and were on the job.

Pasture renewal is a time-consuming and ongoing task. Older famers are more set in their ways and less likely to adopt new farming methods, so we went after younger farmers. Younger farmers have a common affliction – the crushing weight of a high mortgage – that makes them open to new revenue-generating ideas.

Our goal was to drive farmers to the Pasture Renewal Charitable Trust website, which was a rich source of persuasive information. To achieve something like this, an incentive makes a huge difference. But the budget was slim. All we had was information, and an idea.

The Trust had a brochure that contained a compelling argument for pasture renewal, and let farmers calculate how much extra profit their farm could generate. However the staid format didn’t do justice to the content. By transforming this into an ebook with a friendlier, modern design and more compelling headlines, we materialised an offer of perceived value to drive farmers to the site. This formed the crux of our advertising campaign.

After years of experience advertising to the agricultural market, we know how crucial it is to speak to farmers in their own language. We also know that farmers don’t have an emotional connection with their pasture, but they do with their animals.

With these insights, we launched a bold campaign that personified the stock by using the headline “How to be more popular with the girls”. This articulated an emotional truth and appealed to the farmers’ blokey sense of humour, while mimicking the self-help book genre to promote the ebook incentive. The copy conveyed the benefits of better stock health, performance and greater productivity.

The campaign featured in farming magazines and as web banners on agricultural websites. In this context, the adverts popped. They were incongruously unique and therefore instantly memorable.

Provoking an emotional reaction was clearly the right tactic. In the two months following the launch of the campaign, new visits to the Trust’s website spiked, and incredibly 9 of every 10 visitors downloaded the ebook.

The proof is in the pasture. The Pasture Renewal Charitable Trust has finally gotten their message across. They’re happy, the farmers are happy, and most importantly – the girls are happy.

Ebooks are a sales tool that can be used to incentivise prospects, generate and nurture leads, and establish your brand as a thought-leader. If you’d like to discuss how an ebook strategy can work for you, call Steve on 09 950 2144 or 021 744 960.