Storytelling: Marketing the Unique Story of Your Farm Business for Success; 2009 Cornell Strategic Marketing Conference Summary

Abstract

E.B. 2009-22The marketing decisions of today‘s small- to medium-sized agribusiness firms selling agricultural, food, and specialty products are becoming more and more complex. New markets and channels are developing for local products, changing consumer demographics and tastes and preferences are affecting the types of new and emerging products consumers are demanding, new technologies are improving the way products are packaged and increase access to local and distant markets, and alternative business organizations continue to be created that capitalize on collaborative production and marketing synergies, to mention just a few. The 2009 Cornell Strategic Marketing Conference, sponsored by the Agricultural Marketing and Management Program Work Team (PWT), encompassed many of these complex issues, but in a way that addressed that primal question of concern: ?Why should I buy your product rather than someone else‘s?? ?This conference has always been about giving farm producers and valueadded agribusiness operations specific marketing tools and improved marketing skills that they can go back and apply to their business right away,? noted Dr. Todd Schmit, co-conference organizer and Assistant Professor of Agribusiness at Cornell University‘s Department of Applied Economics and Management