SD Corn campaign wins regional marketing awards

A “True Environmentalists” multi-media campaign featuring South Dakota farmers won Best of Show in a National Agri-Marketing Association regional competition.

The South Dakota Corn Growers Association and Corn Utilization Council teamed up on the campaign with Paulsen Marketing of Sioux Falls. In addition, entries involving the two corn organizations won two first-place recognitions and three merit awards.

The first places were Best Advertising Directed to Consumers for the “True Environmentalists” campaign and Best Public Relations Campaign to Consumers for an “Acre of Corn” campaign, which aired on KELO TV. Merit awards were Best Advertising Directed to Consumers for a “Thank a Farmer” campaign, Best Billboards for “True Environmentalists,” and Best Internet Web Site for www.sdcorn.org.

Paulsen, which won 13 awards in the Region 3 competition, produced all of the winning South Dakota Corn campaigns.

David Fremark, president of the South Dakota Corn Utilization Council (SDCUC), said the awards are a testament that South Dakota corn farmers and Paulsen Marketing are leaders in successfully spreading agriculture’s story.

“The Paulsen staff has innovative ideas and they’ve done an outstanding job of helping us spread farmers’ positive stories in an effective way,” Fremark said. “The ‘True Environmentalists’ campaign is just one of many promotions our council has undertaken, but it’s one of the most significant and most successful. As farmers, we realize how important it is take care of our soil, water, air and wildlife every day in addition to our commitment to feed and fuel the world.”

Greg Guse, Paulsen Marketing’s president, said his company and the corn organizations have a good cooperative relationship that contributes to successful marketing and advertising campaigns.

“We certainly believe in their missions and that makes it easy to work with them,” Guse said. “It becomes a real partnership thing.”

Guse said awards are a proud moment of accomplishment, but the top priority is to successfully achieve marketing objectives. He and his staff were “very, very pleased with the outcomes.”

Teddi Mueller, legislative and industry affairs director for the SDCUC, said Paulsen Marketing does exceptionally well at setting objectives, planning, and producing a campaign that stands out and gets noticed.

Guse said Region 3, which encompasses South Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota, traditionally has some of the toughest NAMA competition. The award winners in the regions will be judged in April’s National Best of NAMA Competition.