The ability to communicate the value of a new technology is more times than not the driver of success for the integration of that new technology on the farm. Traditional advertising, while important in the creation of brand awareness, often misses the mark leaving farmers and retailers—the end users of ag tech— with questions void of a direct line to answers.
In 2023, Taranis, the providers of AcreForward Crop Intelligence, enlisted the help of our Aggregate team to share the company’s unique advantage in strengthening the retailer-farmer relationship. With decades of ag tech experience, our team quickly assessed that storytelling, across multiple geographies, crops, and cooperatives would share the good news of AcreForward Crop Intelligence and its leaf-level insights. The goal was to provide answers to the Who, What, When, Where, and Why with the important component of how the tool drives value to every acre and every relationship.
Unique but not unknown to the agriculture industry, Taranis employs a business to business and business to customer (farmer) sales and marketing model that targets the insight-driven relationships agriculture is known for… it’s important for farmers to know what is happening in their fields and retail agronomists lead the charge in delivering that information and the solutions needed to maintain profitability. Taranis integrates well into this relationship, putting plant-by-plant leaf-level insights at the fingertips of agronomists, allowing them to micromanage their day and pinpoint fields that need a closer, boots-on-the-ground assessment—all before they have finished their first cup of coffee. The ability to deliver insights that reduce input application, save a farmer money, and validate input performance on a per acre level elevates the retailers who partner with Taranis.
Capturing these stories, specific use cases, and the different forms of value delivered back to the farmer created benefit for both the Taranis retail-partner and Taranis while providing a farmer’s use experience with the technology.
What resulted was a season-long portfolio of longform testimonials that provided a firsthand showcase of how AcreForward Crop Intelligence benefitted every link in the value chain.
The season of storytelling culminated in a November cover wrap with The Scoop Magazine, an ag retailer-centric publication where five additional advertorials ran throughout the year. The cover wrap promoted the Taranis fall media sports-themed campaign and provided the directive to “turn to the back cover to find your next move”. The back two pages offer a co-mingled testimonial experience from both retailers and the farmers they work with. The feature represented six different cooperatives, farmers, and geographies—as diverse as agriculture—with individual QR codes to link to each full story.
Central Valley Ag- Tyler Tobald
“As a storyteller and communications professional, I immensely enjoyed this project, from pitching the concept to the execution of the content. Every story offered a different “piece” of the production agriculture journey of challenges, from replant to highlighting what farmers need from a retail partner to maintain a competitive edge in today’s modern production paradigm. This cover wrap campaign has been my favorite Aggregate project to-date,” says Aggregate partner, Laura Handke.
