Online community for ornamental horticulture
Industry-Wide Grassroots Marketing Campaign?
Would you participate? The idea, which was discussed by a handful of people across all aspects of the industry at OFA Short Course, is to have a simple marketing message that spans all of floriculture (a made-up example would be Plants Are Great) and spread it through all marketing avenues.
Everyone in the industry would be encouraged to include the slogan and an accompanying website on all their promotional materials and spread it through social media (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.).
The sponsors of the idea would like to hear feedback from the retail, grower and landscape communities - so respond here and let us know what you think!
For more background, read the story here: http://www.todaysgardencenter.com/news/newsacrosschannels/?storyid=...
Everyone in the industry would be encouraged to include the slogan and an accompanying website on all their promotional materials and spread it through social media (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.).
The sponsors of the idea would like to hear feedback from the retail, grower and landscape communities - so respond here and let us know what you think!
For more background, read the story here: http://www.todaysgardencenter.com/news/newsacrosschannels/?storyid=...
Tags: floriculture, grassroots, industry-wide, marketing
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Rick Brown on -
Jen, Let me be the first to say thanks to Laurie and Frank for a years worth of work in getting it to a point where we could come together last week with a presentation that showed the foundation of what social media and grassroots marketing could do to help our industry. We are a unique industry that has terriffic products people like and stories to tell about them. We will all need to learn and do much more to get the buy in we need from absolutely everyone to make this happen as Laurie and Frank envision. Thanks to Stan Pohlmer for moderating and thanks to the core group of leaders who worked in the background, attended the meeting and all raised their hands in support. Participating in this is such a small gamble for such a big group of gamblers. What if this works really really well?
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Permalink Reply by Joe Sorensen on -
In my opinion this is a great idea. This should be incentive driven and not mandated though. We simply need to convince folks that their participation is an investment and not an expense. In addition, by committing to the marketing campaign it will not only benefit others, but will benefit them personally. If everyone understands this, they will freely promote the message.
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Permalink Reply by Sara Tambascio on -
Laurie Scullin shared some of the graphics from his presentation for a grassroots effort...
And Laurie says about the campaign, "I think it is great to get us all thinking about what you call it if you had 'Got Milk' for plants?
We went through a lot of possible names, and while this might not be 'it,' I think it could be close. We liked the idea of before and after - the world before plants and flowers and the world after.
To avoid the flower/tree/shrub/turf thing, we called all 'plants,' as we think consumers all know we sell 'plants.' These are just rough mock ups but convey the idea, and we tried to go into all the plant categories - cut flowers, bedding plants - even turf grass."
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Permalink Reply by John Robert Morgan on -
"Plant Life" sounds pretty good. I'm all for simple, CHEAP marketing. Grassroots marketing is a way to get infinitely more bang for your buck. This sounds great!
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Permalink Reply by Shirley Bovshow on -
Yes I would participate and help promote this campaign. Check out one of my most popular blog posts about what I call "Eden Makers"- and their importance in society today.
http://edenmakersblog.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=597
Shirley Bovshow
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Permalink Reply by Jeannie Hanson on
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I've just received this...new to this forum. Think it's a great campaign. Says what one might like to say in a big long dialogue that would be ignored in a simple simple way. Love it. I'd forward this idea along. Jeannie
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Permalink Reply by Rick Brown on
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Twitter also has a FREE service called Twitpic. When you upload an image and a short message, the message flows to your Twitter followers with a link that will open the image and message. In addition the previous images are stored in thumbs on that page in your Twitpic library. This is a great opportunity to leap to the front on Twitter for our industry that can take advantage of the beautiful images of what we grow. Upload from your stored images or on the fly as you take images from your camera phone.
Are we ready to start a Group here with ideas like this that will lay some groundwork for the campaign?
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Permalink Reply by Rick Brown on
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Permalink Reply by Rick Brown on
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I just listened to OFA session Audacity of Change: Social Media presented by Roy Prevost and more pieces are falling into place for me now. With the statistics he sites we have some better direction on how to act and interact with consumers today and tommorrow. Thanks OFA and Roy for spelling this out.
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Permalink Reply by Jen Polanz on -
Bumping this thread up - we just ran a column from Laurie Scullin in the January issue of the magazine, and I wanted to see if there are any additional thoughts about a social media promotion for floriculture.
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Permalink Reply by Steve on -
I guess I would participate subject to the details of the campaign. I have some concerns about the current verbiage that the general media is constantly throwing in the Public's face. Number 1 is suddenly Our industry's name has been hijacked! We ARE the Green Industry NOT some manufacturer of an energy efficient appliance! Suddenly going green is not about planting plants but being more energy efficient. If I had Hijacked one of Exon Mobile's slogans you can bet there would be a whole team of lawyers filing lawsuits! And who was the sub-Mongoloid retarded creaton scientist that coined the phase Greenhouse Gases? Atmospheric Pollutants I think is more descriptive and does not infringe on the Greenhouse industry's name. Believe it or not some people actually believe that greenhouses somehow are at fault for climate change. The organic movement is another issue. Are we to just accept the media's constant bombardment on the Public that somehow if everything we produce is not 100% organic it is somehow an inferior product? Sustainability is another explosive buzz word that everyone is throwing around and very few have any clue as to what it really means. If we don't stand up for ourselves as an industry who will? I feel that right now everyone EXCEPT our industry is framing the public's perception of our industry! Since our industry has got so proficient at Trademarking plants How about Trademarking "Green" and Greenhouse! Does raising Poinsetta's organically mean I can charge more for them like the produce industry is? Hum....
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