2015 Fresh Summit flashback — PMA sees payoff in incremental efforts to build demand
ATLANTA — Cathy Burns says the Produce Marketing Association’s recently announced alliance with the Entertainment Resource Marketing Association is another tool produce marketers can use to build consumer demand.
Under the terms of the alliance — which has no end point — ERMA will advocate using more fresh produce in television, movie and other entertainment shows, while PMA members will provide nonbranded fresh produce to put on production sets. The agreement was put in place in mid-October, Burns said, just in time for Fresh Summit.
“Things like ERMA, FNV and Eat Brighter! (are) not a silver bullet, but if we can inspire the industry to see marketing as a discipline and the opportunity to inspire all generations to eat more fruits and vegetables, that’s our mission and happens to be our mandate,” Burns, president of PMA, said.
Sony executive’s influence
She said the idea for an alliance with the entertainment association was first suggested at the Partnership for a Healthier America Summit two years ago. Burns said George Leon, Sony’s executive vice president of consumer marketing, was on a marketing panel at the event talking about the fact that “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2” was the first animated film that actually featured fruits and vegetables in a significant way.
Leon connected PMA with the Entertainment Resource and Marketing Association and Burns said a couple of PMA board members — Jin Ju Wilder and Mark Munger (representing PMA board member David Lake) — attended an ERMA board meeting.
After the meeting, Burns said both boards were enthused about pursuing a strategic alliance where PMA members would provide fruits and vegetables to put on sets. The produce will be generic and not branded, though Burns said produce companies could negotiate with production companies to put their brand in the spotlight.
“I see (the alliance) as a public service announcement, as a way to really have great interventions with TV shows, movies and online entertainment where we (see) the normalizing of produce and fruits and vegetables on a regular basis.”
‘Legitimate and credible partner’
Munger, vice president of sales and marketing of 4Earth Farms, Los Angeles, said he went to the ERMA board meeting with few expectations.
“I walked away very excited from the meeting, feeling they are a legitimate and credible partner and they have a desire to participate with this to get the powerful fruit and vegetable messages on TV and movie sets,” he said.
“We are starting to look at movies and TV shows where adding fruits and vegetables make sense, and ERMA is going to lobby on our behalf,” Burns said.
ERMA staff can calculate, based on fresh produce time on screen, the number of media impressions that are generated among viewers.
Continuing a theme that Burns and PMA CEO Bryan Silbermann raised in their State of the Industry address, Burns said PMA leadership encourages the industry to look at marketing as a discipline.
“We have Eat Brighter!, we have FNV and now we have a partnership that makes it a norm of a child is grabbing a fruit and vegetable as opposed to a bag of chips,” she said.
Burns said PMA’s support of Eat Brighter! has drawn about 60 companies involved with the Sesame Street-themed marketing effort to varying degrees so far. Burns said the companies who embraced the assets available to them are seeing the strongest results.
— By Tom Karst
