Repositioning A Masterbrand
Join us November 14-15 at the Hyatt Regency Crown Center in Kansas City for the 2006 Agribusiness Forum.
The Forum welcomes Ann Ness, Vice President of Corporate Brand Management for Cargill as she presents Repositioning a Masterbrand – The Cargill Case Study. Developing and implementing a brand repositioning strategy for Cargill is no small task. This is especially the case when you consider the decentralized organization of the 12th largest company in the world and the 6th largest food supplier. How do you build a master brand when participation is essentially voluntary? Ann Ness, Vice President of Corporate Brand Management will outline the four steps that they took over a six year period to reposition the Cargill brand. Today’s Cargill is positioned, with a business-to-business brand, as an agri-food company that is an important and honorable player in the business of nourishing the world. Attendees will take a look at what it took to create this brand image.
Ann Ness is Vice President of Corporate Brand Management at Cargill, where she is responsible for the corporate brand identity and related advertising campaigns. Previously, Ann was brand manager at Radisson Hotels Worldwide and an account executive at an advertising agency. She began her career as a newspaper reporter in southern Indiana and later in St. Louis. Ann serves on the Carlson School of Management’s Brand Enterprise at the University of Minnesota where she is a frequent guest speaker.
If you would like to attend the Agribusiness Forum, register on-line now at http://nama.org/forum/register.htm.
For more information on the Forum sessions and our speakers, visit, http://nama.org/forum/index.html.
Chesapeake NAMA chapter members and guests were treated to a tour of unique points of interest in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, on October 26th. The tour started with a stop at the Leola Produce Auction. This co-op auction provides Lancaster County farmers, mostly Amish and Mennonite, with a marketing opportunity to sell produce and plants to buyers from New York, Boston, Philidelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. The first auction occured 20 years ago under the visionary leadership of the Nolt family. Today it involves over 3,000 farmers who sell over five and one-half million dollars of produce annually. The group got to see produce, including pumpkins, califlower, cabbage, and other late season produce, being brought to the auction in horse drawn wagons. The highlight was seeing a pumpkin that weighed over 700 pounds (see photo).
The next stop was lunch at Yoder’s Family Restaurant. The group was treated to an authentic Pennsylvania Dutch meal served family style with everything from ham loaf and fried chicken to “Shoo-Fly” pie and home made ice cream. No one left hungry.
Thanks to Sonja Wasco, Grant Heilman Photography, for making the arrangements for the Leola Produce Auction tour; to Kristine Harper, Case New Holland, for the plant tour arrangement; and to programing chair, Paul Redhage, FMC Agricultural Products, for the other meeting arrangements and publicity.
On Tuesday, October 24, 19 MoKan members and guests gathered at the M&S Grill on the Country Club Plaza to network and to hear from Janet Braun, program coordinator for the CropLife Ambassador Network.
About 20 Badger NAMA members braved the chill of Wisconsin’s fall September air to experience a firsthand look at the state’s winemaking industry while raising funds for NAMA students.