Catching Flies with Honey
It’s the top of the ninth in the Activists vs. Agriculture baseball game. The Activists, although playing a dirty game, are up by a number of runs. They came out swinging hard, and despite their lack of basic common knowledge and tendency to bribe the umpire, they’re winning. Agriculture, I regret to inform you: We’re losing, and we’re going to continue to lose unless we get the bats rolling and get the dug-out fired up.
Let’s call a time out and talk marketing. Marketing, as defined by Business Dictionary as “The management process through which goods and services move from concept to the customer. It includes the coordination of four elements called the 4 P's of marketing: Product, price, place and promotional strategy.”
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) knows what they’re doing when it comes to marketing. Although some of the articles they publish and many of their tactics are unethical, they’re winning and it all boils down to marketing.
If you go to PETA’s YouTube channel, you will see many videos involving zoo animals, household pets, fur in fashion and even a playlist titled “sexy celebrity videos.” PETA’s YouTube channel has over 480,000 subscribers hundreds of videos.
We, as agriculturists, don’t do the best job of marketing agriculture to the public. The problem isn’t that we don’t have the resources to market agriculture, there are entire college degrees dedicated to agri-marketing. The problem is: we don’t seem to see the point in it.
I cannot count the amount of times I’ve asked a farmer or rancher about activist impact on the future of agriculture only for them to groan a little then smugly say something to the effect of, “Well we have to have agriculture to survive, they can’t end it completely.” And they’re right, the day agriculture (as a whole) dies is the day we all die. But animal agriculture? It could be thrown out the window like the drop of a hat.
This past week in my undercover Facebook world, I saw the link to a video titled “Should Vegans Always Be Nice?” This video was not produced by PETA but a vegan activist. After watching the nearly 8-minute video, I came to a conclusion: these people know what they’re doing.
Click the image above to watch the “Should Vegans Always Be Nice” video.
“We’re told if you upset someone, you’re a bad person. So we find it hard, it’s against the fiber of our nature to upset someone. But I’m here to tell you: I’m sorry. You have to do it. You have to get comfortable with upsetting people,” the man in the video said.
This video was made to teach activists how to talk to the public. The title is a little deceiving because the person in the video isn’t really telling the lecture hall full of activists to be rude: they’re telling them to be strong in their beliefs and respectful in their delivery.
PETA has two videos on their YouTube channel which are similar and more playful. One is titled “Tabling in Five Easy Steps,” and the other is “How to Leaflet in 5 Easy Steps.” Both of these videos are basically how-to videos centered around PETA members passing out flyers and providing information successfully in a public setting.
Again, these people clearly know what they’re doing if numerous people support anti-ag activist groups. It would be smart to take a bit of information away and learn from this successful organization.
Basically, the content of the two videos can be boiled down to this: be respectful, be informative and be approachable. Personally, I’ve witnessed many agriculturists go against these three easy tips.
When I log on to twitter, I’m often greeted with someone commenting on an activist’s tweet or a video which has been posted. Most of these tweets are common misconceptions of agriculture. But 9 times out of 10, the agriculturist attempting to correct the misinformation is using lude language or making cruel remarks — something most people don’t respond well to. It’s completely unprofessional and it doesn’t matter if it’s correct information or not. People may hear you if you’re screaming louder, but they won’t always listen.
Just because someone is ill-informed of agriculture doesn’t mean you, someone with extensive agricultural knowledge, has the right to belittle them based off of their agricultural ignorance. Yes, it’s easy to do and honestly it usually gets more Facebook likes and retweets — but being twitter famous shouldn’t be the goal here. The goal is to effectively educate the public of basic agriculture, and how can we expect for them to learn anything if we’re making them feel stupid?
My mom has always reminded me, “you catch more flies with honey,” and I believe that statement applies to educating agriculture to the public. Be nice, be welcoming, engage in a friendly debate (emphasis on “friendly”), jump at the opportunity to educate the public. Be respectful, informative and approachable to anti-ags — you may be surprised at the opinions you can change with a kind heart and a just cause.
