Major marketing campaigns

My definition of a major marketing campaign is a compilation of marketing materials - print ads, digital media, point of sale materials - with one marketing message.

I kind of see myself as a SC Johnson with a widely diverse product line that includes Glade air freshener, Off insect repellent, Zip-Loc bags, Windex and so on and so on. Each tropical specialty deserves its own cache, its own identity and marketing message. So I've created a major marketing campaign for each of our major products: papayas* avocados, starfruit, limes and a general ad that address tropical produce in general.

These campaigns build up recognition in our trade rags through repetition. My plan is to make these campaigns last for at least one year. I've yet to test this parameter. My predecessors didn't change ads for years on end. And my management, when they really like an ad, will push to keep the status quo.

• There are exceptions to the 'least one year' plan. The "We're Back" campaign which highlighted the return to market of our papayas after Hurricane Dean. The campaign was extremely popular but necessarily short-lived. You don't want to be saying "We're Back" six months, even three months after the fact.

Keep in mind, the vast majority of our marketing efforts focus on grocery retail chains, produce wholesalers and foodservice companies. Our ads are in a select few publications centered on this industry.

There's an overall look and feel to each of these campaigns that signals it's a Brooks ad. Actually its a distinct look that sets the marketing collateral totally apart from our competitors. Bare in mind, our competitors' ads usually center on photos of:

Gorgeous produce

Gorgeous people or kids eating or salivating over gorgeous produce

The not-so-gorgeous owners

The not-so-happy children of the owners

A beauty queen - who found the ladder to Miss USA a bit slippery - succumbing to a tittle with a fruit name in it.

The fields (with or without the owner in it)

And when photos just won't do, cartoons of the fruits and vegetables taking on human characteristics (this week, the Idaho Potato Association drew a mad-scientist potato in his lab)

Kudos to the Marketing Director that courageously combined all, showing a field with the owner and his family standing in a row holding tomatos. Also holding tomatoes and standing in front of the family were two 'Miss Beefsteak Tomatos'**, one real and one cartoon.

**Names have been changed.