Corteva goes all in with Farm Journal for big results

It started with a challenge to Bader Rutter, agency of record for Corteva, to re-evaluate how to plan and buy media by focusing on an audience instead of an individual campaign or product.  Bader Rutter’s strategy was two-fold; to leverage one media partner with vast coverage of Corteva’s audience, as well as diverse media offerings that would allow us to tell Corteva’s story across multiple outlets.

“We approached the whole concept of planning and media buying in the fall of 2023 with the thought process of how do we take our customers on a journey through that pasture growing season in a meaningful way?” says Leah Beyer, digital marketing communications leader at Corteva. “We built our content around topics for each month, and then we reached out for media RFPs looking for ways to go deep with our storytelling and messaging. And then we showed the audience the same baseline vantage point at every point in the pasture cycle. We ultimately went all in with Drovers.”

More investment in one media partner allowed Corteva to bring “Where the Green Grass Grows” to life for their audience.

“We decided to do something totally different,” says Susan Carney, marketing communications leader at Corteva. “We asked ourselves, what if we put more dollars and essentially be all in with one publication, and then really try to bring this campaign to life?”

Marketing Campaign Specifics

Knowing ranchers rely heavily on their peers’ experience, the idea grew, and the Corteva and Bader Rutter team formed the relationship with “American Countryside” host Andrew McCrea. He conducted video interviews for the “Where the Green Grass Grows” campaign. Focusing on seasonality and aligning with Andrew during key times of the year to tell an operational story vs. a product story, those interviews also became blog, website and social media content. Print ads in Drovers, native ads and eBlasts drove people to the campaign website.

“The campaign worked well because of all the channels Farm Journal has,” says Laura Svec, Corteva communications manager. “It was the perfect storm of high-value spokespeople who have a relationship with farmers and ranchers and are industry leaders. We reached our audience more effectively and holistically with this creative approach.”

The campaign didn’t only come to life on the Drovers properties, it also extended to the Corteva websites as a hub for thought leadership on pasture management. The results showed that though Drovers readers used both QR codes and vanity URLs, the vanity URLs produced high-quality traffic. That traffic stayed for a long time: 10-plus minutes and in some cases 13-plus minutes and visited an average of up to six pages.

“We went into this campaign with eyes wide open,” Carney says. “We decided if we start to see tactics are not performing the way we felt that they should be, then we were ready jump in and make some quick changes, versus waiting six months after the fact, at the end of the cycle or the end of the year. We made sure we were more intentional about making sure this campaign was performing the way we wanted it to perform more frequently.”

Many times, marketing success is calculated by quantity, but the team at Corteva and their agency partner Bader Rutter focused on quality. They focused on the people who visited the site and stayed a long time rather than thousands coming and leaving in 30 seconds.

“We had some obvious learnings from this campaign,” Beyer says. “But overall, honestly, it worked. Our spring campaign was our most successful. We believe it’s because ranchers are anxious to be back on green grass and are more available to digest content. We’re looking forward to coming out of the gates firing with our best content again this spring.”

Maximizing Content Through Data

Data and intentionality have led this campaign from the start, and the team looked at the data on a continual basis to see what is most successful. It allowed them to double down and get even more intentional to maximize the content on Farm Journal and Corteva channels.

“As somebody who works in the digital space, where I probably had to eat the largest amount of crow was the volume of traffic we actually get from the print publication,” Beyer says. “In the past, we have not done the best job of measuring print publication traffic. We got really granular with the many vanity URLs. But it was worth the effort because now I can point to print pubs as a driver of valuable visitors to our website, and it also tells us just because someone might prefer to read a print pub doesn’t mean they won’t visit a website as well.”

Svec added the importance of being patient with results beyond 60 to 90 days, and the flexibility with making changes as results come in. The success the Corteva team saw confirmed “Where the Green Grass Grows” was the right story at the right time with the right message.

“This campaign helped Corteva see the story through the farmers’ and ranchers’ eyes in a way we’ve never seen before,” Svec says.

Departure From the Norm

It can be scary to go out on a limb to try something different, but with low risk, there’s low reward. Svec says the responsiveness and commitment across the Farm Journal, Corteva and Bader Rutter agency teams to make things come together perfectly was a big plus.

“‘Where the Green Grass Grows’ was a departure from our previous strategy in a couple ways,” Beyer says. “It was a departure because we have historically spread the peanut butter real thin across multiple media partners, and then you don’t give each media partner’s customers a true experience with your content. The age-old mantra is that somebody has to see something seven times to remember it. Well, they may not see it seven times if you’re smearing the peanut butter thin. So first, we decided to put all our funds into one basket. And that was a little risky. There’s some heartburn with that. The second thing we did differently was we focused on the story about an entire need for a rancher or grower and then placed the right product information based on the opportunity instead of leading with the product message.”

Svec added that she had been out for three months while this decision was being made, and she thought they had lost their minds. But after six months, the results spoke for themselves.

As the world evolves, the way we do business evolves too, and that’s what Corteva has seen with their relationship with media too.

“The way we’re talking to media companies is evolving,” Beyer says. “We now say, ‘Tell us what you’re really good at. We may not do everything with you, but we want to understand what you’re really good at because that’s how we want to partner with you.’ We’re doing things differently based on the value that each media partner could bring us.”

With this surgical precision, Corteva is moving the needle with their brands.

“We’re buying media,” Beyer says. “But we’re trying to come to market in a bigger thought leadership way to have more of an impact across the entire acre with our customers.”