I was fortunate to be involved in judging some of the best advertising, marketing, public relations and interactive work created for the agri-business industry.

The work was entered in the National Agri-Marketing Association’s Best of NAMA competition. A total of 41 judges gathered in Kansas City at the Crown Center Hyatt Exhibition Hall. Advertising and marketing professionals came from Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Kansas, Illinois, Minnesota, Georgia, South Dakota and Nebraska to take part in the Region 2 judging event. They reviewed and critiqued 1,217 entries over two 12-hour days. Judging criteria included creativity, execution and results.

I have a personal interest in the agriculture industry. My grandfather was a farmer, as was his father before him. They worked the land around the Tonganoxie, Kan., area for more than 100 years. As busy as my grandfather was, he always seemed to have a moment for me — even though he worked from before sunrise to after sunset. His son — my father — knew that I was in advertising and marketing but never really understood what I did for a living over the last 35 years. He knew that I was involved in the agriculture industry in some way and told me that my grandfather would be proud of me for supporting such an important industry. Every year, when I judge the Best of NAMA event, I think of my grandfather.

Agriculture is an important industry for America and the world, and the exhibition hall vibrated with the energy emitted from the marketers’ submissions. During these economically hard and uncertain times, agriculture has put forth an aggressive approach in efforts to “feed the world.” Large organizations supporting the industry have come together, reaching out to third-world countries in order to help people learn how to take care of themselves through the agricultural process. The marketing work that we judged this year made me proud to be a part of this global effort.

The number of entries in each category shifted from previous years. Interactive, online and social media more than doubled from the previous year. The PR entries reflected decreased budgets, with agencies donating most or all of their time. Results in all of these areas were measured as precisely as possible with the variety of tools and analytics that we have access to today. Yes, it’s a client’s dream.

This year’s traditional media included print, video, direct mail, outdoor and radio — all exceptionally creative, well-executed and entertaining. The dollars spent on traditional media were similar to years past, but the demographic was targeted more tightly. This helped save wasted production costs on trying to reach unsubstantiated potential customers, which in turn allowed more dollars to be allocated toward creativity and execution, particularly in the direct mail category.

Here are few of my favorite entries.  I don’t know if they will ultimately win, but they certainly caught my eye and are all winners to me.

Agriculture.  An important industry? Yes, I believe so.

National Agri-Marketing Association (NAMA) is the nation’s largest professional association for professionals in marketing and agribusiness. There are more then 1,730 members.

I’ve had the opportunity over the last few months to redesign print materials for Friends University. Immediately, I knew that I wanted to do something young, fresh and easy to read. For me, the solution was simple, both literally and figuratively.

I am the queen of employing simple designs that use lots of white space, and I’m a big believer in less is more: The less text an audience is presented with, the more likely the audience is to start reading.

Sounds kind of backward, but think about it — when you open a newspaper and flip through the ads, you’re probably more likely to read one with less copy than one filled column to column with text and heavy images. It gets confusing, even a little intimidating, to be visually bombarded with so much at once. Maybe it’s just me, but when life is busy and time is of the essence, the shorter and more concise something is, the better.

When I began designing the new look for Friends University, keeping the audience in mind was vital. This client deals with multiple audiences: undergraduate, graduate and adult degree completion. High school seniors, for example, receive numerous materials from colleges daily. Graduate and adult degree completion candidates don’t have time to fish through the mound of educational materials inundating their mailboxes. Friends University needed its marketing efforts to stand out from the rest.

Why not make it all visually simple, clean and less intimidating? Short headlines, short body copy and colorful pictures portraying the friendships and fun of college — that was the way to go.

So, in attempt to not be a hypocrite, I’ll keep it brief:
Keep it short, keep it simple, keep the white space.

Break through the clutter, don’t add to it.

In the March 9, 2009 edition of BtoB Magazine, Sean Callahan’s article “What Does the Future Hold For Print?” explores the decrease in the number of B2B publications.  According to MediaFinder, 257 publications folded in the two year period from 2007 to 2008.  January and February of 2009 saw 20 business publications close.  This trend should have B2B marketers asking tough questions about the place for trade publication  advertising in their long-term marketing plans.

In part, this downturn in B2B print publications can be attributed to the rise of B2B online advertising.  The attraction of  trade journals has always been the ability to target specific industry verticals and reach decision-makers.  With online tactics like search engine marketing and contextual advertising (to name a few), B2B marketers have been able to deliver their marketing messages to a targeted group of people who are actively searching for information.  They can often do this online for a fraction of the cost of advertising in a selection of trade publications, with substantially more measurement metrics to track advertising performance.  Trade journals no longer hold a monopoly on reaching industry segments.

Even popular print publications like PC Magazine, which led all trade publications in advertising revenue in 2008, have abandoned their print editions to focus on online properties.

So are trade journals dead?  No.  There will continue to be an appropriate place for trade journal advertising in the marketing mix.  These ads will still serve to generate awareness, strengthen brands and target decision makers.  What will need to change is the size of the marketing budget devoted to trade journals.

Something else to watch is the price of ad space in print publications.  With fewer publications in any given vertical, the remaining publications may feel that they have a larger share of the audience, and therefore will charge more.  B2B marketers would be wise to watch for these types of increases and review them on a case-by-case basis.