CS 03
LAND O' LAKES

FARMERS ARE
INCREDIBLE

In fulfilling the company’s mission to “Put farmers at the center of creating a better world for everyone,” we first needed to convince their own employees that they were more than just a butter company.

The fact is, Dairy is less than 10% of LOL's revenue. Land O’Lakes, Inc is really an agriculture company whose business units also represent animal nutrition, crop inputs and a carbon offset marketplace, all in service of their owners: American Farmers. Because Land O’Lakes, Inc is actually a 125 year old cooperative.

Starting with the development of a new brand strategy that centered on a line, "Rooted in Tomorrow," we developed a complete brand identity refresh. An updated logo, reflecting how each business unit contributed to the corporate mission, was followed by a full update of corporate identity standards, then further supported by a film intended to bring this new positioning and identity to life. Why? Because if your employees don’t believe in the brand, you’ll never be authentic enough to get your target audience to believe it. 

Internal constiuents aligned, it was time to put our message out to our target - policy-makers, politicians, influencers and the press.

But for anyone to truly believe that “farmers are at the center of creating a better world for everyone”, we needed to dispel some common misperceptions that farmers and farming were controlled by corporations and mass agriculture. The fact is, 98% of American farms are family-owned. And 88% of all the food we eat come from those farms. So what better place to drive that message home than in America's Heartland? Partnering with the Big10 Network, we leveraged TV, social, influencers, digital media and a heavy dose of experiential (on National Farmers Day) during halftime of the Nebraska Cornhuskers vs Purdue Boilermakers football game. 

The results of this campaign were both powerful and impactful. We raised Land O’Lakes, Inc’s brand reputation across all levels: general reputation was up +7%, the brand authenticity up +8%, genuineness of purpose +9%. And at the end of the year, TIME Magazine named Land O’Lakes one of the 100 Most Influential Companies in the World and their CEO, Beth Ford, one of TIME’s 100 Most Inspiring Leaders in the World.