Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin

Marketing communications:dairy Farmers of Wisconsin (dfw) exists to be a tireless advocate for our state's Dairy Farmers and is focused on increasing demand for the Milk produced in our state. In Wisconsin 90% of our Milk goes into making cheese, so we spend the largest portion of our resources on activities to drive demand for Wisconsin cheese. We continue to build the Wisconsin cheese reputation with food fanatics nationwide by utilizing public relations, digital advertising, events, search engine optimization (seo), social media, nationwide integrated promotions and our national brand ambassador community for cheese lovers.we shifted our digital focus this year to concentrate more heavily on reaching our target food fanatics - people who believe food is core to who they are. Through paid placements in our primary social media platforms, facebook and instagram, we provided deeper storytelling of our core messages, and we began expanding into tiktoks and reels. Although we decreased our traditional digital advertising efforts, our seo strategies helped us increase organic traffic to wisconsincheese.com to offset some of that lost traffic, resulting in an impressive 2 million website visitors in fy2022. On the culinary front, we produced five issues of our popular grate. Pair. Share. Digital consumer magazine resulting in over 3.2 million impressions and an average recipe review on wisconsincheese.com of 4.8 stars out of 5.in fy2022, we ran three integrated Marketing campaigns, "the more the merrier," "cheese is my love language and "wonders of Wisconsin", with the intention of driving engagement and in-store sales of Wisconsin cheese. "the more the merrier" included both consumer and retail shopper activations.the "Wisconsin cheese Board awards" contest, facebook live cheese Board tutorials and digital advertising generated more than 19 million impressions and 405,000 engagements.the omni-channel shopper activation enabled retailers across the country to use a variety of tactics in stores and online to drive shoppers to Wisconsin cheese, including feature ads, recipes, and display contests. "cheese is my love language created a season of Wisconsin cheese love from cheese lovers day (january 20) through valentine's day (february 14). This campaign generated over 35 million impressions through paid digital, execution by 28 national retailers, and $5.3 million in earned media coverage. "wonders of wisconsin"promoted Wisconsin cheese in over 6,200 retail locations nationwide during american cheese month in may. Marketing materials for retailers ensured shoppers could see the proudly Wisconsin cheese badge in store displays, print ads, online digital ads, email blasts and social posts. Overall, the campaign resulted in an average sales lift of 30%.in fy2022, dfw earned over $45 million in earned publicity indicating our return on our investments was at least 45:1. We secured placements in some widely viewed shows and publications including fox & friends, today show, all recipes, forbes, people and more! Public relations supported major campaigns and drove over five million dollars in public relations for the "cheese is my love language" campaign alone. Local broadcast coverage continued to grow and achieved placements in all of our key retail markets helping drive purchase at local retailers. Product placements on tv shows and movies resulted in over 1 million viewers.dfw's brand advocate program called cheeselandia grew to over 5,000 members in fy2022. Word-of-mouth Marketing has become an important part of our strategy as we continue to leverage cheeselandians in every state to advocate for Wisconsin cheese. To spark word of mouth within this community, we engaged community members through virtual events, education seminars and social media. All of this generated over 10,000 conversations about Wisconsin cheese each month.through strategic partnerships and brand experiences, dfw builds brand loyalty among our food fanatic audience. We continued to tell the Wisconsin cheese brand story through partnerships with Wisconsin foodie (television) and heritage radio network. Episodes that aired on Wisconsin foodie told the story of Wisconsin gelato/custard/ice cream, highlighted widmer's cheese 100th anniversary and more. Through these channels we featured original content and targeted ads to hundreds of thousands of consumers. We also engaged our core consumer through the "cheese is my love language" campaign where 500 people were nominated by someone who recognized them as a cheese lover. The campaign received thousands of nominations and over $5 million in media coverage.dfw's mission of growing demand and our relentless actions to promote Dairy products has led to Wisconsin outpacing other origins (such as france or switzerland) on awareness, consideration and purchase. Consumers are taking notice as awareness of Wisconsin cheese varieties is up to 60% and growth of Wisconsin specialty cheese retail sales outpaced growth of the entire cheese category. All of this means that consumers recognize Wisconsin for its award-winning cheese and specifically look for it when buying cheese.

Wisconsin communications:as america's dairyland and home to over 6,000 Dairy farms, it is important to reinforce the state's pride and keep one of the state's largest industries strong. One of Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin's (dfw) objectives is to build trust in Farmers, Dairy farming, Dairy products, and our organization in Wisconsin. To build trust, we utilize public relations, social media, websites, e-newsletters, nearly 60 volunteer promotion groups, school programs, and farmer trade shows. Through the company-wide efforts at dfw, total Milk usage over the last 35 years has increased by 79%, and since 2013, annual cheese sales have risen by 45 million pounds. Furthermore, about 16% of Dairy is exported outside the country.our key stakeholders, Wisconsin Dairy Farmers, must see transparency in our efforts and how we are utilizing their dollars to promote Dairy. Fifteen cents for every 100 lbs. of Milk is deducted for the checkoff, which has remained the same since 1983. Our farmer communication team works tirelessly to connect the programs run by dfw to the local farmer, sharing success stories. We strategically plan content and communications year after year to ensure we are connected to the over 6,000 Dairy farm families we represent.utilizing various communication techniques, we reach Farmers with relevant and timely information, providing the tools and assets they need to tell their own stories and critical state and national messaging. In fy2022, our monthly newsletters averaged a 32% open rate and 2.24% click-through rate, and we sent over 42,000 emails. Moreover, dfw's facebook followers increased by 9.38%, obtaining a reach of 443,704, and over 80,000 engagements; our efforts garnered an average 3.8% engagement rate.reaching today's consumers and remaining relevant is essential to maintaining Dairy's place in the consumer diet. Public relations efforts work towards building trust in and of Wisconsin Dairy and Dairy Farmers. Dfw funds alice in dairyland and helps tell Dairy farmer stories and get consumers to visit farms through june Dairy month activities and through key dairy-centered times throughout the year. Sharing recipe inspiration, farmer stories, and Dairy product promotion all leverage consumers' attention during key times throughout the year.through our Marketing efforts, data shows that Dairy continues to remain relevant due to various factors such as clean labels, familiar ingredients, health, and environmental halos. Dfw actively pitches Wisconsin Dairy producers, processors, and partners to media outlets to earn placements.to reach the next generation of Dairy consumers, we have a youth and schools program that builds trust in three ways: localizing the national checkoff fuel up to play 60 program, creating Dairy education programming, and seeking ways to increase Dairy consumption during meals. Wisconsin's fuel up to play is one of the leading regional program executions, reaching nearly 300,000 Wisconsin students in 96% of counties with our Dairy messages. Over 300 Wisconsin schools are actively engaged with the website and utilized the available digital resources offered to impact 95,000+ students. As part of the program, 50 Wisconsin schools were awarded grants valued at total of $78,000 to implement dairy-focused activities.in schools, our adopt a cow Dairy education program continues to expand into even more elementary and middle schools to educate students about the birth and growth of a baby calf over the course of five to six months. The program continues to exceed our expectations reaching 1,700 school classrooms and impacting 43,000 students in 96% of the counties in Wisconsin - a 54% increase over the previous school year! Our annual national school breakfast week promotion highlighted Dairy in 400 school cafeterias impacting 120,000 students. Finally, a competitive Dairy equipment grant opportunity provided school meal equipment to 12 school districts affecting 34 schools and over 10,000 students, helping school nutrition departments increase participation and serve more Dairy to students.working together within Wisconsin, dfw and Dairy advocates build networks for promotion and Marketing that we call "champions of Dairy." These volunteer-led local organizations implement state and national messaging, building trust on a hyper-focused local level. National Dairy month (june) is the most significant activation time for these groups and results in hundreds of thousands of personal connections throughout Wisconsin sharing economic impact, sustainability, cow care, and Dairy nutrition messaging. In 2022, dfw supported over 60 on-the-farm and 70 community activations. Champions of Dairy groups are our "volunteer feet on the ground" advocates extending dfw messaging while stretching the farmer dollars further with local activations.

Channel promotions:dairy Farmers of Wisconsin's channel promotions area provides support to supermarket retailers, food service operators, wholesalers and distributors through a variety of promotional support programs to drive distribution, sales and awareness of Wisconsin artisan and specialty cheese. In fy2022 channel promotions continued to adapt our tactics to the new reality and circumstances of the post-pandemic marketplace.we reopened our in-state buyer mission format for fy2022 conducting 16 in-state buyer missions and 5 virtual buyer missions. This led to planning with multiple retailers for buyer missions conducted july through october. Once again, the combination of virtual buyer meetings and in-state buyer missions continues to be one of our most successful platforms for connecting key trade decision makers with Wisconsin cheese companies. In addition, we were able to bring the whole foods team back for three separate weeks of training at the center for Dairy research to prepare their cheese mongers for the certified cheese professional test administered by the american cheese society.the second half of fy2022, january through june, saw the return of key trade shows including winter fancy foods, international dairy-deli-bakery association and summer fancy foods. Additionally, the team participated in the national restaurant association show in may and started planning for the private label manufacturers association show in november 2022.the regional Marketing managers combined for over 794 campaigns with 88 targeted retail and food service accounts. While retailer print ads drove the category with over 200 campaigns, the team also executed 153 digital campaigns. The channel promotions team supported over 45 display contests with average sales increases from 30% to 50%. The regional Marketing managers combined for 164 separate campaigns supporting our three major events including "for the love of cheese", "wonders of Wisconsin and "the more the merrier". The tail end of fy2022 saw the limited return of live in-store sampling and demo events which continue to gain momentum.