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Eileen Nelson
UW-Madison Department of Horticulture
608-265-5283 |
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Floriculture's Biggest Challenge: Creating MindShare Opportunities"
June 27 - 29, 2011, Ithaca, NY
In today's post-recession marketplace, the "reborn consumer" is asking tougher questions. She is making more critical decisions as to what is really important and what she really needs.
Marketers can no longer assume the consumer will return to buy what she has bought before. Indeed, total consumption levels have already returned to pre-recession expenditure levels, but not every subsector of the economy has rebounded, as the consumer is spending differently, buying more in some categories and less in others.
The 26th Annual Seeley Conference will explore these questions through thoughtful relevant presentations by industry leaders and lively group discussion.
Featured speakers include:
- Ian Baldwin, garden retail consultant
- Tim Farrell, floral designer
- Susan McCoy, president, The Garden Media Group
- Katy Moss Warner, president emeritus, American Horticultural Society
- Lisa Paschke, vice president for marketing and sales, Bachman's, Inc.
- Adam Schwerner, director of the Dept. of Natural Resources for the Chicago Park District
- Beth Zwinak, manager of Tagawa Gardens, Centennial, Colo.
Conference Brochure. |
| Garden Centers Edge Out Mass Merchants | | |
Source: Garden Center Magazine
When GWAF (Garden Writers Association Foundation) started tracking the early spring gardening preferences of consumers in 2005, only 40 percent of the respondents planned to buy most of their spring plants at garden centers compared to 51 percent who favored mass merchants.
Today, GWAF's report, conducted in April, found that garden centers maintain a slight edge over mass merchants (46 percent to 44 percent) for consumer preference in purchasing most of their spring plants in spite of a more than 23-percent decline in planned garden spending overall.
"Best Quality" remains the primary criteria for many households (51 percent) choosing where they will shop for plants. "Best Price" was reported by only 27 percent of consumers as the most important criteria for where they will purchase their spring plants.
- One-half (50 percent) of respondents who have a garden expect to use garden centers, nurseries, or classes for their spring garden planning, while 52 percent plan to gain knowledge from their neighbors.
If this last point is in fact true, then customer service and education are the keys to keeping your customers coming back as well as telling their neighbors about you.
http://www.gardenwriters.org/gwa.php?p=gwafoundation/surveys_gardentrends.html
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| Floricast Podcasts |
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Garden TV podcasts that may prove helpful to the growers in the audience:
- Media Physical Properties: Handling
- Petunia vs. Sclerotinia
- Symptoms of Temperature Stress
- Black Root Rot on Pansies
- Calibrating pH and EC Meters
- How to Spot Powdery Mildew on Petunias
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| "Sleeping Shrink" | | |
Thursday, May 26 at 2 p.m. EDT (1 p.m. CDT)
Presented by Will Healy, Ball Horticultural Company, West Chicago, IL
Do you have processes or operations that are slowly eating away at your profits? Then you suffer from "sleeping shrink" which quietly increases your time to complete tasks and adds unnecessary costs to your business. Will Healy has spent the last three years looking at ways to increase yields and improve quality throughout the supply chain that puts money into growers' pockets. Join Will as he explores a couple of quick hints you can try yet this spring to save time and money.
This does not appear to be for OFA members only -- so REGISTER HERE.
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| E-Retailer Conversations Conference Call | | |
Tom Shay of Profits Plus Seminars, frequent speaker at IGC and a speaker at the 2011 Garden Center Symposium offers regular conference calls on building your business.
His next one is scheduled for this evening, May 17 at 7 p.m. Central and will cover ideas on how and where to begin making improvements in your business.
To participate:
1. Call 1-800-544-4579 if you are in the US. If you are in Canada, dial 1-888-633-2102. All other countries dial 1-302-709-8431. Yes, the e-ret@iler conversations conference call is now free in North America.
2. Upon getting the recorded message, enter the passcode of #96376143. If you want to only listen to the conversation, press the *6 as you enter the conversation so as to block your background sounds from being heard by others. The same command, *6, will unmute your phone when you want to add something to the conversation.
2. Send in your questions now so I can gather some information to answer your question for you. Our contact page can be reached by clicking on the link at left. Be sure to send your questions through the links on the contact page, and not by replying to this email.
3. We are planning to record the call. If you want to listen to the conference call again, you can do so on our website for free.
If you miss this one, get on his mailing list at http://www.profitsplus.org/.
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| Proven Winners Launches NBC-TV Ad Campaign | | |
This spring Proven Winners is extending its ever-growing media portfolio by adding seven NBC-TV local station affiliates to the mix. In addition to their extensive print, radio and online advertising campaigns, gardeners will now see and hear the Proven Winners 30-second television commercial while watching "The Today Show" and other morning and evening news programming in seven major markets.
The campaign will run through early June on local NBC stations in Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, San Diego, Boston and New York markets. More than 15 million viewership impressions are anticipated as Proven Winners continues to find new ways to support growers and retailers in large gardening markets.
Additionally, Proven Winners will continue its television commercials on The Weather Channel's popular segment "Local on the 8's."
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| Scotts Fertilizers Phosphorus-Free by End of Next Year | |
Scotts Miracle-Gro will remove phosphorus from most of its lawn fertilizers by the end of next year, and is focusing on creating more "efficient and optimized" ways to use nitrogen in its lawn fertilizers. Phosphorous is blamed for turning aquatic habitats into dead zones when excessive amounts are dumped through residential and farm runoff and waste water. Some states have enacted bans on the use of lawn fertilizers containing phosphorus, and more are considering restrictions.
Scotts began lowering phosphorus levels in its lawn fertilizer products in 2006. Because phosphorus is essential to the initial root development of grass, the nutrient will remain in the company's starter fertilizers. Phosphorus will also remain in its lines of organic lawn food, as it naturally occurs in organic materials contained in the products.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jim Hagedorn says a central part of the new initiative is a multi-year commitment to consumer communication, education and grassroots outreach regarding water quality and conservation. This includes incorporating water quality and conservation messaging into the company's consumer advertising, dedicated websites and other "digital outreach tools" for consumers, as well as funding for educational outreach efforts with environmental partners and local organizations. |
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