Consumer Information and Foreign Marketing

The Meat Importers Council of America (MICA), the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) and the U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) have continued the series of presentations before the Operating Committee today (see more below from this morning) with proposals for Beef Board funding of consumer information and foreign marketing Programs in Fiscal Year 2009.

MICA’s proposal for beef public relations in the Northeast region of the United States — where there are fewer cattle but tremendous density of consumers — seeks $125,000 in funding from the Beef Board. NCBA proposals for consumer information programs — including consumer public relations, nutrition influencers, and youth information and information — are seeking a combined total of about $3.56 million in the coming fiscal year. In the area of foreign marketing, the U.S. Meat Export Federation brought a total of 13 requests for national checkoff funding in Fiscal 2009, totalling about $5.84 million.

The breakdown of the proposals presented for these two funding areas are as follows:

CONSUMER INFORMATION:

• Northeast & N. Virginia Public Relations; MICA - $125,000: This would fund health and fitness events in the populous Northeast and be implemented by State Beef Council staff in the area. The goal is to extend the reach of other national checkoff nutrition public relations programs in an area where states have fewer checkoff dollars available to them.
• Consumer Public Relations; NCBA – $2,188,700: Tactics in this proposal include “safety reputation management,” which involves protecting the beef industry’s reputation from misinformation through outreach by nutrition-industry influencers, as well as a public service safety education program. In addition, it would invest national checkoff dollars for nutrition public relations to reinforce the positive beef protein and nutrition messages to consumers nationwide.
• Nutrition Influencers; NCBA – $866,900: This proposal seeks Beef Board funding to continue building a preference for beef among the industry’s target food- and health-involved consumers via dissemination of sound scientific information, partnerships and relationships with nutrition professionals, and mitigations and management of dietary-guidelines issues.
• Youth Education & Information; NCBA – $260,500: This proposal would fund dissemination of positive and science-based beef information to youth in the school environment, delivered through parents and schools. This includes continuation of the checkoff’s School Wellness and Family Mealtimes Program.
• Youth Education Grant Writer; NCBA – $50,000: This is a new proposal that suggests identifying and hiring a reputable and experienced grant writer to help identify supplemental funding for the checkoff’s youth education program in light of shrinking budgets.

FOREIGN MARKETING:

The 13 foreign marketing proposals are aimed at building U.S. beef exports worldwide, considering that 95 percent of the world population lives outside of the United States. In fact, international market opportunities are considered by many in the industry to offer the best possible opportunities for growth in demand for U.S. beef. Following are the promotional campaign regions covered by the foreign marketing proposals for Fiscal Year 2009, and the accompanying projected cost for the Beef Board (which would be combined with funding from USDA). All proposals were brought to the Operating Committee by USMEF.

• ASEAN (leading markets are Vietnam, Philippines, and Singapore) - $75,000
• Caribbean – $60,800
• Central/South American – $60,900
• Dominican Republic – $20,400
• Europe – $167,300
• Middle East – $101,600
• Greater China – $172,700
• Japan – $1,227,900
• Mexico – $806,100
• Russia – $189,400
• South Korea – $947,600
• Taiwan – $233,500
• Implementation of all proposals – $1,773,800

Still on the agenda for this afternoon are proposals for Beef Board funding of promotion and producer communications programs, as well as implementation costs for all NCBA projects. We’ll be back with details when those come up.