Midwest Dairy 2021

Effective Communication on “Why Dairy” Messaging for Millennial Parents
(age 24 to 40) and Gen Z (age 10 to 23) Consumers

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Open Innovation Challenge:

  1. Strong messaging for “why dairy”
  2. Identify the connection between dairy nutritional facts and modern health and wellness trends (immunity, calming/relaxing, energy, digestive health)
  3. Compare quality of various protein options available for millennial parents and Gen Z consumers
  4. What are the channels to articulate the message to reach the millennial parents and Gen Z consumers?
  5. How do we articulate sustainability messaging (water usage, transportation, GH gases) for dairy vs other choices to reach the millennial parents and Gen Z audiences?

Reason for Seeking External Innovation Partnership:

It is a complex subject that needs appropriate information (what, where, how, and when) to communicate the facts in an effective manner to our target audience. In recent times, dairy has seen a lot of competition with a range of conflicting health and environmental messaging. Our challenge is to respond proactively without disparaging the competitive products, though factual comparisons are acceptable.

Scope of Solution Space:

  • Messaging that resonates with the skeptical millennial and Gen Z audience in the Midwest region
  • What, where, how, and when we communicate the facts in an effective manner to our target audience
  • Understand the research that is already available and evaluate the credibility with our target audience with the possible recommendation on how to remedy
    • Eg.: your audience wants to hear from ___and ___ and here is how you can do it____.

Solutions Not of Interest:

  1. We are data rich and knowledge poor – we might not be interested in recommendations for additional market/consumer research that might be duplicative. We would like someone to consider available research and provide us ready to use communication plan (audience, messaging, channel, etc)
    1. Consumer/market research proposals would be of interest to Midwest Dairy, IF there is a strong need/knowledge gap that we cannot ignore.
  2. Not looking for overly technical language/research terminology

Company Background:

Midwest Dairy is a non-profit organization representing approximately 5,800 dairy farm families to 39 million consumers across our region. We are funded by farmers across a 10-state region, including Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma. As part of the national dairy checkoff, we focus on dairy promotion, nutrition education and research and are committed to child health and wellness through our collaborative program, Fuel Up to Play 60. We work on their behalf to build dairy demand by inspiring consumer confidence in our products and production practices. Midwest Dairy is focused on maximizing the dairy farmer investment by working with and through our partners to share information and real-time experiences that showcase how dairy products resonate with today’s consumer: responsibly produced, nutrient-rich, locally driven and offers real enjoyment.