Reflecting on 2009, Welcoming 2010

At AKC, we’re happy to be ringing in a new year, but before we move too fast into 2010, we wanted to take a quick moment to reflect on what we’re thankful for in 2009.

1. Our associates. We’re proud of our associates and the work they do each day. We’re thankful that we were able to grow this year, to add new faces and new skills to our growing portfolio, and we’re thankful that as we’ve grown, we’ve stayed true to the philosophies on which we based our business – growing our clients’ businesses by bringing fresh ideas to the table time and time again.
2. Our clients. We are thankful for our clients, who not only give us the opportunity to work with them, but to know them. We know and appreciate that we aren’t only working with good businesses – we’re working with good people.
3. Our future. We are thankful that our future is headed in the right direction ― continuing to base our decisions on what’s best for the first two things for which we’re thankful ― our associates and our clients. We’re thankful that because of our hard work and dedication, it looks like our AKC family will continue to grow again in 2010.
   

Thank you to everyone who made 2009 a great year!

Providing Solutions

If you ask many companies for help ordering merchandise for an upcoming tradeshow or as a customer appreciation gift, the majority of them will turn around and send a few options with pricing your way.

Shawn Brincks, Director of Merchandise at AKC, believes you should receive much more.

“At AKC, we do more than provide pricing ― we provide solutions,” Shawn said. “We’re going to take a look at your overall brand, your marketing and advertising efforts, and we’re going to make sure that what we come back to the table with won’t just suit your needs for one event ― it’s going to grow your business.”

We represent and are licensed by some of the top names in the quality apparel and merchandise industry.

For more information about AKC’s merchandising capabilities, email Shawn Brincks.

No farm pub has seen this before

We recently created a "cover wrap" for our client, Latham Hi-Tech Seeds. A cover wrap is an advertising wrapper that envelops an entire publication, serving as a preliminary front and back cover until the reader turns the wrap page to get to the real cover. When used as part of an appropriate marketing strategy, a cover wrap can be a powerful tool in generating great visibility, awareness and a call to action.

This cover wrap, front and back shown here, published in a recent issue of Iowa Farmer Today, was to announce a new kind of field tour for Latham's corn and soybean seed. Usually, these field demonstration showplots are pretty routine; locations and dates are set, farmers who are interested show up, a presentation on the seed traits and technologies is made, then everyone goes home.


This year Latham is making their field demonstration plots into motorcycle ride. Farmers who ride are invited for an afternoon motorcycle tour of farms in Northwest Iowa, culminating in a hog roast and concert at Arnolds Park.

The cover wrap is one of several tools, online and offline, that AKC is developing for Latham. By the way, if you ride and to want to take part, here's the registration page.

Our robotic dairy client, Lely USA, earns front-page feature....and then some

Anytime you can get help a client receive feature coverage of their company on the business page of the state's leading newspaper (and Web news site), that's a good thing. When that story ends up running on the front page, that's a great thing. And when it gets picked up on the Associated Press wire, we're totally down with that.

Of course, it helps when the client's business--robotic milking systems--has some great visual material to accompany the story. It also helps when the client is the global leader in automation and innovation in the dairy farming space. Hence, it's fun for us to convey this story to select editors and reporters, and it's fun for them to report it. We'll let you read it for yourself.

Oh, and here's the video, too. (Please be a sport and endure the ad up front.)

Health care management just got easier

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National Care Network in Irving, TX, is an innovative company specializing in health care cost management solutions. Specifically, the company helps the consumer find the most cost-efficient health care options when he or she needs to go outside of the provider network to receive services.

AKC composed the creative templates for NCN's new Consumer Scope web site, where users can register to search price and service data for choosing out-of-network providers. The site is clean, easy to access and moves the viewer to the needed information quickly.

As health care economics continue to go through big-time transformations, NCN's expertise and service are a strong example of how user-friendly technology, rich data, and an elegant, highly actionable business model can lead to cost and service improvements.

New economic development effort goes big

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You know what they say: "Go big or go home." Well, one of the fastest growing small towns in the Iowa is going big. And AKC is glad to be along for the ride.

Polk City, Iowa is home to 3,000 people, many of whom work for major area companies such as John Deere, Principal Financial Group, Wells Fargo, Marsh and others. Many residents are families with young children. They are attracted to Polk City for its small-town quality of life, its position near two large recreational lakes, plus wonderful home choices, strong schools and convenient access to the larger metro Des Moines area.

What they don't have is a comprehensive local recreational and wellness facility that young families and active seniors would highly value. That may be about to change as the city along with the chamber and community foundation is mounting an outreach program to secure funding to build The Big Creek Wellness Center. This project will house an array of indoor athletic facilities plus an aquatics center and outdoor soccer and football fields.

For this project, officials came to AKC to a create capital campaign case book that illustrates the concept for potential funding partners. It's early in the process, so this piece serves as a way to introduce the Wellness Center and the basic operating and funding structure behind it. The design and production plan we offered-- a 22-page undersized color booklet with brilliant photography and beautiful spreads--demonstrates the scale of and commitment to the plan, while leaving plenty room for future content development and details as the project moves through the fund raising and approval processes.

An e-newsletter that mooooooves markets

AKC this month launched a digital newsletter for its client, Lely USA, delivered via opt-out email to more than 1,700 dairy industry professionals across the country. The publication title, called Lely Life, reflects the market position of the company - dairy robotics expertise that helps farmers:
1) improve their quality of life by reducing strenuous labor and time spent in the barn,
2) get the most and highest quality milk not only from each cow, but each teat!

In the aftermath of our first distribution, we've tracked some interesting numbers:

• Percentage of email opened by first-time recipients is more than 4 points higher than the average for e-newsletters in the manufacturing and distribution category.
• Opt outs -- those choosing to not receive future issues-- are less than 1%
• Nearly 10% have clicked through to other links embedded in the newsletter. We will look to improve that.
  

If you're interested in getting on the free subscription list, click here.

A different kind of D.C. pork

As most marketing people know, the pork industry has been facing the daunting task of fighting public misinformation and misperceptions about eating pork during the H1N1 flu outbreak. Pork sales and prices have quickly declined as many consumers in the United States and around the world mistakenly think that tainted pork is the cause of the H1N1 strain of flu currently circulating.

The story today in the Washington Post details some of the inside PR planning by the pork industry and its various counselors in trying to turn around the public scare about eating pork.

While we're at it, we're posting two videos on the topic, as part of our unfailing commitment to public service. It was hard finding any clips that did not refer to the topic using the "S" word or that weren't filled with misinformation or hysteria. Still, we did find one particularly informative video that did all the right things; an update from the White House.

And in the spirit of not relying solely on government information, we've also posted a clip from CBS News, which also has done a dutiful job of referring to the issue using the proper terminology.

5/2/09: Your Weekly Address from White House on Vimeo.

New Web site reflects client's new company

The third generation of the Latham seed company family recently purchased and combined company assets to form a new company, Latham Hi-Tech Seeds. The company's commitment to remain independent and provide an array of selective seed technologies to their customers was captured in a Des Moines Register business feature story, arranged through media relations initiatives carried out by AKC.

AKC also created a new Web site for the company. The site significantly upgrades the general graphic quality of previous sites, and adds new functionality for Latham's customers such as dealer product ordering and event registration screens, weather and commodity market access, searchable databases for yield trial results, head-to-head yield comparisons and other essential crop planning tools.

Dairy media take part in robotic farm tour

AKC Marketing client Lely USA embarked on a two-day tour of 5 dairy farms in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin that all milk their dairy herds with Lely Astronaut A3 robotic milking systems. AKC invited two key dairy industry editors--Karen Lee of Progressive Dairyman and Lana Olson of Hoard's Dairyman--to go along on the tour. The editors, plus a group of dairy farmers also on the tour, learned the intricacies of robotic dairy production...how cows are easily trained to freely visit the robot for milking. The group saw how one Lely robot can milk up to sixty cows three times each day, greatly reducing the manual labor stress on the farmer and his family.


Lely is the world leader in dairy robotic technology, having gained the leadership position in Europe where 60% to 70% of dairies are robotic operations. With its recent arrival in the United States, Lely is aiming to help U.S. dairyman realize the financial advantages, the cow-health improvement, milk volume increases--and the lifestyle enhancement--that come with quality-built robotics. R2D2 has nothing on these machines.

A PR masterpiece

"60 Minutes" recently ran a story in which reporter Scott Pelley accompanied an FDIC team on a takeover of an Illinois bank. The story was high-risk for the FDIC and, in a larger sense, for public confidence in government regulation and the security of our banking system. It's hard to recall when such media access has been granted to a high-test, federal regulatory enforcement action carried out in real time.

In our estimation, the story turned out to be a masterful PR execution. Any reasonable viewer leaves the story feeling assured that the FDIC depositer protection program works extremely well with minimal disruption, especially in this volatile economic climate. FDIC employees are portrayed as extremely competent, professional and assuring to bank customers. FDIC chair Sheila C. Bair also performs admirably in her leadership role. If "60 Minutes" ends up essentially paying tribute to a government agency, you know someone somewhere was very much on the ball.

It was great planning and preparation all the way around by the FDIC staff, which is the core of effective public relations.


Watch CBS Videos Online

We're getting wind of something big in the Midwest

We recently attended the annual meeting of the Iowa Wind Energy Association. The meeting was held at Iowa Lakes Community College in Estherville, which has grown to become one of the premier sites for training and certifying technical pros who install and service giant wind turbines. Those machines cost upwards of $2 million a piece. Right now, wind-generated power accounts for 1% of all energy generated in the U.S. by public and private utilities. That 1%, however, constitutes displacement of 29 millions tons of coal and 90 million barrels of oil a year. The federal goal is to generate 20% of our power through wind by 2030.

As you can see from the photo, these turbine units are much larger close up than they appear from the farm fields. That's Al Zeitz on the right, director of ILCC's wind program, standing in front of a decommissioned unit. That big thing behind Al is the "nacelle" of a wind turbine, the enclosure behind the blades that houses the gear box and electronics of the turbine. As you can see, it's about as big as a fuselage of a small jet. Here's an interview with Al from Daily Kos that provides a lot of cool insight into the wind picture.

AKC was at this gathering because we're highly interested and involved in leading edge technologies and innovations, whether they're new traits for seeds, new robotic technologies for dairy farms, or new human nutraceutical ingredients and products.

A ride like no other

We're just teasing this for the client right now, but if you know any row-crop farmers with Hogs (the rumbling kind) in Northwest Iowa, pass it along!

It's mostly in our heads!

Ben Stein is one of the great socioeconomic commentators going right now. Here is a clip of his latest work from CBS Sunday Morning March 8, 2009 (please bear with the 20-sec. promo).

He says this recession is one born of psychology and fear, not tangible harm. A great perspective. Pass this along to your friends and colleagues, and let's roll!

AKC new digs - The build-out

Here are some pics of our office being built this past year. The construction dust has settled by now, and we're fully ramped up. The fridge works great, the computers are fast and the carpet is tough enough to handle practice golf swings.

Latham Hi-Tech Seeds

This is a sample of display creative AKC produced for Latham Hi-Tech Seeds. This piece is used at ag industry events where crop growers assemble to talk about seed buying decisions and planting needs.

This unit imparts the message of Latham's leading seed technology expertise with colorful, impactful visuals in a clean, quick-read layout.

Lely USA

Technical content, with all the painstaking detail combined with clear, functional imaging and masterful organization, is one of our specialties.

This product spread for Lely USA helped the company upgrade its golf equipment presentation to the trade, resulting in higher awareness of Lely's quality and innovation story within the golf course maintenance space.

Latham Hi-Tech Seeds

Latham seed companies rely on us for a number of marketing strategies and executions, including their annual product guide. With seed techologies evolving literally every quarter, staying on top of new traits and gene stacks while maintaining the essense of the Latham's family-owned, independent brand is job one for AKC.

Embria Health Sciences

AKC developed and maintain's Embria's social media program, centered on its blog, Balanced Immune Health.

The blog activity generated by AKC has raised Embria's and blog's linkage to important search terms to front page in several key word categories that are important to its business.

Latham Hi-Tech Seeds

If you're a corn, soybean or alfalfa grower in the upper Midwest, Latham Hi-Tech Seeds probably is your seed partner...or your neighbor's. In business since 1947, Latham is a unique company: a true family owned, independent seed company that partners with not just one seed trait technology provider, but many. If a new seed technology is coming out of the test fields, Latham will get it to you, and also make sure it's the best variety for your soil type.

Latham likes to do things a bit differently. Like like build field demonstrations around a regional Harley ride, or send its agronomists to individual farms to provide in-depth consulting on best practices so that the most profit is realized from each crop acre. All as part of its standard service.

AKC has helped Latham achieve year-over-year sales increases through brand re-freshening, targeted print advertising, dealer event promotion, and a direct mail schedule that shows the Latham expertise and difference to thousands of farmers every month.

Lely USA

Lely USA is a part of the world's leading robotic dairy equipment manufacturer. Lely innovation and technology help dairy farmers manage their milking operations, right down to the quarter-udder. The result is not only improved profit per unit of milk, but more time given back to the farmer's daily life so he or she can do other things besides live with the cows.

AKC is helping Lely reach the nearly 70,000 dairy farms in the U.S that, through their size and herd management methods, are prime candidates for robotic milking systems.

Our direct mail programs for Lely coupled with database building and management plus dealer communication programs, are helping Lely expand this life-changing technology through the American dairy producer industry.