Phil Johnson, COO of Colle+McVoy received the NAMA Marketer of the Year award and received it from Stephanie Gable, NAMA president and Lyn Henderson, AgriMarketing Magazine.

Perhaps to honor NAMA during its 50th year, Phil wore a golden toga the night before. Here’s what was said of Phil during our session.

Phil Johnson has become an expert at taking the status quo and making it better. Whether he’s revitalizing a stagnant brand, reorganizing a business group or providing a struggling subsidiary with the resources needed to gain the confidence to succeed, Johnson is a vital part of maximizing nearly every challenge he encounters, to the benefit of his clients, his company and those who work around him.

Johnson’s philosophy is simple. He uses a straight-forward equation to get the results that put his clients at the forefront of the agricultural industry: Relationships + Rigor = Results. Utilizing this equation to dig into a customer’s business and understand it from the ground up takes a huge amount of work and commitment, and is the key to successfully acquiring and keeping clients.

Roy Williams, The Wizard of Ads, was our first keynote general session speaker.

His topic, “The Wizard of Ads Reveals the 12 Most Common Mistakes in Advertising – and the Secret Formula for Success!” was fun and informative. Not everyone attending was directly involved in advertising but everyone attending could learn from them and apply them in whatever job they do.

Roy became the Wizard of Ads when an early client gave him the name. You might want to check out his Wizard Academy or Monday Morning Memos.

Our NAMA Agribusiness Leader of the Year is Dale Ludwig, Missouri Soybean Association. He received his award on stage during the morning general session.

Dale says that he has always wanted to win this award. For him receiving the award was like achieving a dream. Dale says that there’s a very bright future for agriculture. He says agriculture feeds the world, is now fueling the world and in the future will be significantly involved in health care. He also says it’s important growing up with a mentor that provides you with a good role model and that we shouldn’t forget to be a mentor to others too.

I spent just a couple minutes with Dale after the session and you can listen to my interview here: Dale Ludwig Interview (3 Min MP3)

The 2007 National Agri-Marketing Conference chairman is Barry Nelson. Here he is on stage greeting everyone at the opening general session.

Barry says the conference attendance has exceeded everyone’s expectations with over 1,100 here in Dallas. I confirmed that with Eldon this morning. I think that makes it bigger than even Kansas City last year.

I interviewed Barry later on during the day yesterday about the conference. He really enjoyed Roy William’s presentation as did I but says there’s just too much to like to say any one part of the conference is better than another.

Listen to my interview with Barry: Barry Nelson Interview (3 Min MP3)

A great way to start the day is by having someone hand you some cash. Of course someone has to have some cash to give away.

That person was Kathi Conrad prior to the opening general session on Thursday. The staff does know how to get on our good side.

Each person who entered the session received a dollar bill. Conference chairperson Barry Nelson explained when he welcomed everyone. I didn’t write it all down but it had to do with thinking positive and imagining how many dollar bills we’d have in our pocket by the end of the conference if we got a dollar every time we had a positive thought.

The first session of the NAMA Connection Point was very well attended right after the Best of NAMA awards ceremony. Thanks go to DTN for sponsoring the very tasty wines. It was a perfect complement to the whole evening of celebration of talent we have in this industry and organization.

We have 47 exhibitors at this year’s trade show, including ones like Fastline pictured here. We’re going to be there for three sessions again today so we hope to see you stop in.

There are a lot of drawings going on for some really great prizes and tonight’s closing session will be very special and I’ll report on it later.

The Best of NAMA awards Ceremony was another outstanding production this year. The program was shortened due to some schedule changes that allowed everyone to attend the trade show afterward and still have time to go to dinner. The comments I heard about this were all very positive.

Here’s a short list of winners as announced via AgriMarketing magazine where you’ll be able to find the full results in the April issue:

Last evening at its annual Best of NAMA celebration held in Dallas, TX, the National Agri-Marketing Association (NAMA) presented 61 first place awards for outstanding ag communications activities during 2006.

Taking home Best of Show awards were:

* ADVERTISING-National Pork Board, West Des Moines, IA; Agency: The Richards Group, Dallas, TX,

* PUBLIC RELATIONS-McDonald’s Corp. Oakbrook, IL; Agency: Morgan & Myers and Golin Harris (cooperative effort), both located in Waukesha, WI, and

* SPECIALTY-Nestle Purina, St. Louis, MO; Agency: Colle+McVoy, Minneapolis, MN

Companies taking home the most awards were:

* CaseIH-4
* Dow AgroSciences-4
* John Deere-4
* Valent-4

Agencies taking home the most awards were:

* Colle+McVoy-9
* archer>malmo-4
*B ader Rutter-4