Ross-Ade Stadium was electric Saturday night as the Purdue Boilermakers beat the Nebraska Cornhuskers 43-37 in Big Ten play. Signs of “Our Corn is Better Than Your Corn” were found around the stadium, but the big ode to farmers came during the halftime show by the Purdue All-American Marching Band. They performed “Butter” by boyband BTS, Hoe-Down (the theme music from the beef commercials), and others.
“Our purpose, really, is about putting farmers at the heart of creating a better world for all of us,” says Heather Malenshek, Chief Marketing Officer with Land O’ Lakes. They partnered with the Big Ten and Purdue to make the performance happen in conjunction with their new campaign called, “Farmers are Incredible”.
“As we think about that, it’s not just words. We want to make sure that people understand, in particular, the role that farmers play in our food supply because I don’t know that necessarily people actually connect the dots there.”
Land O’ Lakes is working to raise consumer awareness of the critical role farmers play in our society by sharing statistics that people may not be aware of.
“For example, fewer than 1% of the population are actually involved in agriculture today and they feed 100% of the population. And it’s really incredible when you think about that for a second, so we wanted to bring some of those messages to life.”
And that was brought to life as it was spelled out by the Purdue band during their performance.
The “Farmers are Incredible” campaign was rolled out in conjunction with National Farmers Day last week, but Malenshek says every day is Farmers Day to them. She asks you to excuse the pun, but this was just the kickoff to the campaign with more content coming via their social media channels.
“We’ve actually formed an ‘All Ag-Team’ as part of this. So, we have some great (Big Ten) alumni and current players that come from a farming background or are farmers themselves and we’re telling their stories. And then we have some episodic content, so really storytelling around the importance of farmers in rural communities.”
You can also visit rootedintomorrow.com for more content and hear my full interview with Malenshek below.
