“I never worry about action, but only inaction.” –Winston Churchill
Its time for OpenHort to chime in on the perennial debate regarding a national marketing campaign for the nursery industry. By the end of this series of posts, I will ask you for money. Along the way, I hope to lay a foundation for us to have a common understanding of the key decisions we have to make.
“There is nothing new under the sun.” –Ecclesiastes 1:9
Every generation in the nursery business has faced similar problems, from labor supply to government regulations to eroding prices. And each generation has met these challenges and overcome them. Sometimes it has called for united, organized efforts, and at others the solutions were found by individual businesses working alone.
One solution that all previous generations have failed to implement is the “national marketing campaign” or “promotion order” for the nursery industry. I do not say that they failed to address it. They did; and they decided on inaction.
This debate is nothing new, but there are new things to say and consider. If we have any hope of success in creating a viable plan for industry promotion, we must move the conversation forward. For too long, the proponents of national marketing have been stuck in neutral, saying little more than, “Gee, wouldn’t it be great if we had a campaign like ‘Beef: What’s for dinner,’ or ‘Got milk?’”
To move past square one, we must first completely understand the square we’re in and make some critical decisions on what direction we should go.
Firstly, to those who say, “We should have a national marketing campaign,” we must ask: WHY?