Customer education is never easy.
This is especially true when clients come from a trade as venerable as horse breeding. Changing age-old misconceptions is an arduous task, but one must act for the benefit of all.
Cargill’s sub-brand Nutrena had developed a new formula specifically for horses’ topline. But, what is that? A horse’s muscles parallel to its spine. A healthy topline is the foundation of a lively horse – just like good posture for humans.
Harmful Misconceptions
However, amongst horse breeders and veterinarians, there is a harmful misconception that malformed toplines are always a product of bad genetics and badly shaped saddles. They believe that the only thing that could be done to correct topline problems is more exercise and changing equpiments. The majority of these beliefs are just myths without empirical evidence.
Cargill did the research, and found a solid connection between nutrition and topline health. They identified what specific nutrients benefited horses the most, and included those in their new formula. Sadly, people in the industry were still uneducated on the matter. This was unfortunate two-fold: for Cargill, who wanted to sell their novel product; and for horse owners, who were unintentionally harming their horses.
Responsibility to Educate
Cargill realised that they need to educate horse owners to generate interest in their product. With the help of an agency, they developed educational content on topline health, to help owners recognise if their horses suffer from any ailments. They presented a product and a solution, and gave their customers the tools to help them decide if they have a problem.
The campaign focused on one product line, but it presented the whole company as a reliable source of veterinary information. Helping customers to self-diagnose problems is a sure-fire way to earn their goodwill.
When we want to provide a novel service in a B2B environment, sometimes we need to question the status quo, and have to be prepared for pushback. Because, companies are a lot like horses: beautiful, complex organisms with well-established systems in place. It takes a lot of effort, trust and goodwill, to convince them to change their ways through customer education. Strategic Communication is the best way to achieve our goals.