Follow the Food

Corteva x BBC

Bespoke 360 partnership for Corteva’s global brand launch.

Agriculture is at a crossroads, the pressures of the modern world and a growing population demand that agriculture transform itself for the next century. As an industry, agriscience has been experiencing unprecedented consolidation with 3 - 4 large players emerging in 2019 and beyond. Following the merger of Dow and DuPont in 2017, the agricultural business of the two corporations combined to form a new company, Corteva Agriscience, which was taken public on June 1, 2019.  

Corteva was the only pure-play agriscience company and the first to launch with unknown number of months in market before the next consolidated competitor. It was critical to capitalize on this first mover advantage, by creating awareness for the new brand -  its positioning, purpose and portfolio.

  • To help drive awareness, establish stature and build equity of the new company, we crafted a partnership between Corteva and the BBC, designed to create awareness and understanding of how Corteva is growing progress.

    The crux was an eight episode global TV series called Follow the Food - exploring the complexities of the food system and the technology advances taking place to feed the growing population.

    Additional program elements included:

    • Commercial assets + structuring the partnership so Corteva owns the commercial block

    • Branded mini doc videos

    • Global syndication (Bloomberg, Canal Rural)

    • Digital and social promotion across the BBC ecosystem

    • Bespoke landing page

    • PR

    • Internal comms

    • Salon dinners

    • Custom augmented reality app

  • The first season rapidly achieved success across categories:

    • Series Episodes: Reaching 435MM households from just the BBC

    • Digital: +25MM impressions of Corteva ROS banners on BBC.com.

    • Social: Content generated +7MM impressions, +4MM clicks and +5MM post engagements.

    • Research: Increased awareness of Corteva with an uplift of 145% in terms of overall familiarity.

    • Events: Four bespoke events with customers and the value chain. Washington DC, USA ; Des Moines, IA, USA ; Johannesburg, South Africa ; Berlin, Germany

    • Mini Docs: Eight 2-minute documentaries featuring Corteva customers from around the world distributed on broadcast and digital.

    The partnership continued for three more seasons accomplishing:

    • Campaign uplifts for Corteva in all attributes:

      • Consideration – 216%

      • Recommendation – 197%

      • Brand Image as a Leader – 194%

      • Positivity – 176%

      • Awareness – 107%

    • Demonstrated agility of the partnership with ‘reactive content’ resulting in a timely 30-min specials:

      • Follow the Food Chain, which reached 35MM viewers worldwide and paid digital driving +100K potential customers to Corteva.com

      • Carbon Special, resulting in 60 pieces of coverage worldwide and boosting Corteva’s reputation by 239% placing them in the lead against competitors

      • Food Security

      • Farmers on the Frontline

    • Winner of multiple Horizon Awards, Crop Science Award and Native Advertising Award

    • PR: Coverage from 40+ outlets around the world

    • Led 20+ person integrated team spanning strategy, creative, account, social, media, comms and partners.

    • Served as SME on partnership, partnering with senior clients on annual planning and providing strategies for leveraging partnership across business units.

    • Bridged brand and commercial teams by strategizing event approach which led to highly targeted salon dinners putting Corteva directly in front of customers, prospects, partners and investors

    • Presented to executive leadership, bolstering program visibility and executive alignment on additional seasons.

    • Scaled the program for local market needs, including creation of GTM toolkits for fast adoption.

    • Managed branded content production and calibrated timelines for mini docs, ensuring timely distributing to align with business priorities.

Show & Tell