Cattle Industry Winter Business Meeting Checkoff Highlights

CATTLE INDUSTRY WINTER BUSINESS MEETING CHECKOFF HIGHLIGHTS SESSION OVERVIEW

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) was one of eight Beef Checkoff contractors that presented information in the “Checkoff Highlights” session during the Cattle Industry Winter Business Meeting on Feb. 4, 2021. From nutrition and e-commerce to advertising and public relations, staff provided an overview of Checkoff-funded program highlights managed through the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.

Holiday Campaign Update

Knowing the holidays might look a little different, based on the COVID-19 pandemic, NCBA developed a fully integrated holiday campaign to ensure that beef was the top protein of choice during the holiday season in late 2020 by leveraging the Beef Drool Log—which is a 2-hour video of beef rotating on an open flame—to make sure that consumers continued to salivate and celebrate with beef.

Market Research

Market research was conducted to understand consumer plans and found that more consumers would be celebrating closer to home and that in doing so, they would be watching more holiday movies at home and shopping online through e-commerce efforts.

Consumer Marketing

NCBA’s consumer marketing team is constantly looking for opportunities to position beef as the top protein by creating digital ads that positively position beef. This year, the team identified a unique opportunity to get Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. back on broadcast TV advertising for the first time since 2003. Beef Checkoff-funded advertisements aired more than 50 times on TV during the Hallmark Channel’s Countdown to Christmas movies to reach consumers who were binge-watching at home. Thanks in part to the Federation of State Beef Councils investment, the :15 second Drool Log commercial was just one of many video ads seen on broadcast, digital and social media platforms. A fully integrated paid media plan made sure that consumers who were on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter, searching on Google or even listening to Spotify—a streaming radio platform that is popular with our target audience—were served a variety of holiday Drool Log ads. Even select Albertson’s grocery stores ran the Drool Log in their supermarkets. Collectively, the paid advertising efforts resulted in more than 78 million impressions, more than 21 million video views and nearly 6 million audio listens.

Media Relations

NCBA also wanted to make sure that people around the country knew exactly how to prepare the perfect holiday meal with beef, so a satellite media tour was conducted live from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Culinary Center, funded by the Beef Checkoff, with a well-known registered dietitian who conducted television and radio interviews with stations across the country. This resulted in 24 interviews with more than 900 airings and reaching more than 22 million viewers and listeners.

Key Opinion Leaders

NCBA worked with ten food influencers as well as four very high-profile chefs that have large social followings to create a groundswell of chefs and influencers who were preparing beef on digital and social platforms. NCBA hosted a virtual Roast & Toast event which brought together food influencers and esteemed chef, Jet Tila, to engage influencers into making their own perfect holiday meals with beef, including charcuterie boards with beef products and of course, a holiday beef roast. This resulted in a combined reach of more than 8 million and more than 232,000 social media engagements. Product Quality & Education Product Quality and Education includes four Checkoff-funded program areas (Supply Chain Outreach and Engagement, Key Opinion Leader Outreach and Engagement, Product Quality Research and Culinary Support) that are focused on ensuring beef is positioned as the top protein. The two projects featured below showcase how these Checkoff-funded program areas help provide unique and real-world education to key stakeholders in the industry and provide inspiration for consumers to buy and cook more beef at home confidently. The programs not only share the right information to best position beef, but they drive measurable product sales and bring a strong return on investment as well.

E-Commerce: Elevating Fresh Beef’s Profile in Online Shopping

E-commerce has fast-tracked its growth projections, growing more in the last six months than it was supposed to grow in the next 2-5 years, with 51% of consumers increasing their online shopping and 21% trying online shopping for the first time.1 Online ordering of fresh beef is an important area of focus and a great way to reach consumers and generate beef sales. The Checkoff-funded Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. team has worked to complete e-commerce campaigns with several partners including Instacart, the top third-party online grocery delivery app, with great success in getting beef in online baskets. The sales lift that resulted from running timely beef messaging on the Instacart platform ranged from 19%28% versus the same period 12 months prior. The beefitswhatsfordinner.com website was enhanced to make the nearly 1,000 recipes shoppable, allowing consumers to click on any recipe, add all the ingredients needed to prepare that meal to an online shopping cart for a local grocery store, then have the ingredients delivered directly or ready for curbside pick-up. Chicory powers more than 5 million shoppable recipes across countless recipe sites and the Beef Checkoff partnered with them to use in-recipe Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. creative to reach summer grillers and drive sales directly with Chicory’s national retail partners Kroger and Walmart to help ensure beef was the #1 protein choice. Digital campaign metrics show more than 9.8 million impressions and nearly 19,000 engagements, beating Chicory’s benchmarks. Most importantly, the campaign drove retail beef sales for those consumers who were exposed to campaign creative. For example, every $1 invested in the campaign yielded a $4.21 return in beef sales with just one participating national retailer, and the percent of sales that came through online ordering was double to triple the rates seen across other products. Meeting consumers where they are is essential for brands and products and right now, where they are is online. Making sure beef is a top choice for them when shopping online is critical for category growth not only now, but certainly into the future.

Chef’s Roll Video Series: Beef

Quality Assurance & Chefs

The journey to deliver high-quality and safe beef certainly requires collaboration from pasture to plate. At each step of the process—from the beef farmers and ranchers who raise beef and abide by Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) standards to the chefs who prepare beef in their restaurants - there is a strong commitment to delivering that highquality beef that consumers love. That’s why Checkoff-funded Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner., in partnership with thirdparty influencer group Chef’s Roll, which has a very large online following of prominent chefs and foodservice professionals, brought beef farmers and ranchers together with chefs. This was done in a five-part video series

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that took five real-world chefs behind the scenes of the beef production lifecycle in five different states to get a first-hand look at the care that goes into creating high-quality beef and to dispel any myths they may have heard about how cattle are raised. Since the journey for quality beef doesn’t stop at the farm or ranch, the farmers and ranchers also went to the chefs’ restaurants to see how they prepare some of their most popular beef dishes and to sit down and share a beef meal. So far, the five videos created between September 2020 and January 2021 have reached more than 1.3 million with more than 650,000 video views. This video effort brings the BQA program from pasture-to-plate and helps position beef as the top protein with the foodservice audience to drive more menu inspiration and menu sales of beef. This video series is just one way this Checkoff program amplifies the positive beef message through voices outside of our immediate family by working with highly visible third-party chef and food influencers.

Issues Management & Public Relations

The Issues Management and Public Relations team works diligently every day to protect beef’s reputation and break down barriers to beef consumption by educating media and consumers about issues they may be concerned about and ultimately make sure consumers feel good about the beef they enjoy.

Issues & Reputation – Climate Week

In the fall of 2020, the release of a documentary entitled “Kiss the Ground” coincided with Climate Week New York City. A Beef Issues Alert was created with talking points, statements and sharable graphics. A proactive strategy to showcase beef’s sustainability story was developed to ensure any potential negative information was counteracted with positive messaging. The proactive strategy included writing and placing a positive story highlighting facts about beef production which was picked up in more than 1,000 outlets across the country in cities like New York, Houston, Los Angeles and Chicago with a combined audience of more than 200 million. Additionally, an electronic billboard in Times Square showcased sustainability messaging and a stories-tall cow in the very city hosting Climate Week. Traditional and social media was carefully monitored to ensure informed decisions were made based on the current climate and to help proactively push out positive beef information on Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. social channels and BeefItsWhatsForDinner.com.

Public & Media Relations

Although press releases continue to be the cornerstone of media relations efforts, the most popular tactic is the satellite media tour, which consists of five hours of back-to-back interviews with TV and radio stations across the country. Media tours for the United We Steak summer grilling campaign and the Holiday campaign were extremely successful. Satellite media tours provide a unique opportunity to interact with local media across the country and share recipes with their viewers helping ensure beef is what’s for dinner. When not hosting a satellite media tour or sending a press release, relationship building with members of the media is key, and the team is hard at work responding to negative stories about beef and pitching positive beef stories to make sure there’s balanced coverage and that beef is shown in a positive light in both consumer and supply chain media.

Nutrition Health & Wellness

NCBA’s team of registered dietitians and nutrition scientists position beef as the top protein by highlighting the great nutrition that beef provides. Through Nutrition Science & Research, Thought Leader Outreach and Marketing and Advertising a variety of audiences are educated about the easy ways to include beef in a healthy diet. Eating in the Early Years The Beef Checkoff has funded research over the last two decades to understand the benefits of beef in the diets of infants, starting as early as 6 months when babies start to eat solid foods. Beef provides a wide variety of nutrients such as protein, iron, zinc, B-vitamins and choline that are especially important during growth and development. 2-6 For the first time ever, the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans make recommendations for infants to start including iron rich foods like beef at 6 months of age.3 And now is the time to educate physicians, dietitians and health professionals about these new recommendations and how to incorporate beef as first food. During the recent Eating in the Early Years E-vent, 650 health professionals joined live to learn the latest research on beef’s role in a healthy diet. That information remains available online for health professionals to learn about beef’s role in early childhood nutrition. In addition, thousands of pediatricians are reached through online newsletters and medical content. The new Beef in the Early Years campaign highlighting the nutrition impact of beef in early years can be found on WebMD, YouTube, Reddit, Pinterest and Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. properties. NCBA’s work on behalf of the Beef Checkoff helps raise awareness of the value of beef in infant and toddler diets. This is new information for many health professionals and parents and the Beef Checkoff is helping consumers find new reasons to enjoy beef at all stages of life. For the latest information and Checkoff-funded content, visit BeefItsWhatsForDinner.com, BeefResearch.org and Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. social media channels.

1 Online Grocery Shopping Study, May 2020 2 American Academy of Pediatrics. Pediatric Nutrition Handbook. 7th ed. Elk Grove, IL: American Academy of Pediatrics, 2014. 3 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. 2020. Scientific Report of the 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee: Advisory Report to the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of Health and Human Services. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Washington, DC. 4 Schwarzenberg SJ, et al. Advocacy for improving nutrition in the first 1000 days to support childhood development and adult health. Pediatrics 2018;141:e20173716. 5 USDA WIC Works Resource System. Infant Nutrition and Feeding Guide. https:// wicworks.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/ media/document/Infant_Nutrition_and_ Feeding_Guide.pdf 6 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://www.fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app. html#/food-details/170208/nutrients