Messaging to Tomorrow’s Consumer

By Danette Amstein Managing Principal, Midan Marketing

I drive about 15 miles of highway regularly to get from my home to my office. And this stretch of interstate happens to be in the middle of NASCAR country. It’s not uncommon for someone to pass me and make me feel like I must be standing still. Depending on how my morning is going, I might think to myself that the driver is dangerous, or I might chuckle and call them a NASCAR driver wannabe. But those are all assumptions — in fact, I have no idea why that person is choosing to fly down the interstate.

Isn’t it interesting how our brains make assumptions all the time? We subconsciously draw upon past experiences, find patterns, and assume based on this data. According to David McCormick, a neuroscience researcher at Yale, “There are over one hundred billion cells in our brain, and each of them makes over 10,000 connections with other brain cells. While the large number of possible combinations of cell connections allows for higherordered thinking, this is a big problem evolutionarily in terms of energy cost.”

McCormick goes on to explain that in order to save energy and make this process more efficient, our brains make assumptions.1

In February, I was honored to speak during Cattlemen’s College at the Cattle Industry Convention about how messaging to tomorrow’s consumer can help keep beef at the center of the plate. A big part of my presentation was how messaging is needed to help clear up incorrect assumptions consumers are currently making about beef and the industry.

Shopping for groceries is an instance where our brains can go into overdrive, making assumptions to help us make decisions quickly from a large number of choices. And we know, both from experience and from research, that some of the assumptions consumers make when choosing proteins are not correct. That’s why it is our job to share information they need to make a more accurate subconscious assumption in the future.

Some consumers may feel pressure to reduce the amount of meat in their diets based on inaccurate information. The percent of selfdescribed flexitarians reached a peak of 17% of the U.S. population in 2021 and has now fallen back to 13%. Fortunately, today about 75% of meat eaters and even 65% of flexitarians agree that meat and poultry belong in a healthy, balanced lifestyle.2 So we, as an industry, need to do everything in our power to give those who want to eat meat permission to do so guilt-free.

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