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

Click image for larger view

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.