'Beefing Up' the Connection with our Community

Ontario Beef is Beef Farmers of Ontario’s (BFO) consumer engagement program that supports all Ontario beef industry stakeholders by laying the foundation for the promotion of ALL Ontario beef products and the entire industry. Our focus is entirely on Ontario consumers and our efforts support the Ontario Beef Market Development Program, as well as individual farmers, brands, retailers, butcher shops, etc.

In 2022, we continued our efforts to show Ontarians that Ontario beef is a delicious, versatile, sustainably raised, high-quality protein. We continued our “simmer and boil” marketing strategy, maintaining a continuous stream of content and activity all year and, at times, ramping things up to a boil with our larger campaigns. We kept our plans focused predominantly online, and included a few larger projects to further enhance our efforts. We would like to take a moment to share some of these new endeavours.

One new, exciting project was video advertising. We created and launched two 15-second video ads, both centering around the theme “Great Taste is Closer than You Think”. The opening visuals suggest the meal is taking place in London, UK or Paris, France, before quickly transitioning to show they are in London and Paris, Ontario. The idea is to remind folks great tasting beef can be found right in their own backyard. The video ads performed well running as YouTube and Connected TV ads for five weeks in the fall. If you were streaming you might have caught them!

In the summertime, we undertook a project to bring three high-profile social media influencers out to tour a farm and create content about what they learned about the environmental sustainability practices on the farm. We worked with Food Network personality Wallace Wong, blogger and TikToker Sarah from Nutrient Matters, and Michael Rizzi, a lifestyle influencer, content creator and LGBTQ+ advocate. Collectively, they have millions of followers on platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. With the new focus on TikTok, our top audience was folks aged 18-24 for this campaign. It was great to reach the younger crowd who are typically most concerned about the environmental impact of their food.

We expanded our podcast advertising in 2022 to include two three-month flights with ads read by music personality, Alan Cross, who hosts Ongoing History of New Music. The ads aired on Alan’s show as well as other podcasts across the Corus network. The first flight focused on continuing to reiterate the environmental message while also talking about summer and BBQ season. The second flight ran two ad spots focused on comfort food and cold weather cooking while also reiterating the sustainability message.

In terms of our Ontario Beef public engagement efforts, 2022 was a banner year. We were pleased with the results on all of our activities, and very happy to back at some in-person events in the latter part of the year as well. We are excited to build on the positive energy with exciting new plans, and further build our fanbase. Be sure to follow Ontario Beef on social media, visit our website, and connect with the office if you would like materials to help promote the fabulous Ontario beef options you have on offer.

www.ontbeef.ca

@ontbeef

@OntBeef