Whether you're marketing to NZ farmers or wanting to get a news story in front of them, they are harder to reach than ever before. The channels available are changing, plus farmers 'media consumption' habits have also evolved.

In this episode, Heather Claycomb is joined by Chris Williams of KingSt Advertising and Richard Rennie of Laurich Agri-communications and Farmers Weekly to discuss what is changing in rural media, which channels still matter, and why trust, relevance and the right media mix are more important than ever.

KingSt's latest rural media report, "Marrying Tech with Tradition" forms the basis of the discussion.

This is a practical listen for rural marketers, communicators and business leaders.

We cover audience fragmentation, trust in media, the role of radio, print, digital and TV, the loss of community papers, and why rural brands need a strategic mix of channels and credible voices to stay visible and relevant.

Five takeaways

1. Farmer attention is still there; earning it takes new tactics.
2. Trust in the channel affects trust in the message.
3. Traditional media still has value, but audience behaviour has shifted.
4. Rural marketing and communications works best when multiple channels are in sync.
5. Real farmer voices remain one of the most persuasive tools available.

Links referenced in this episode:

1. https://www.kingst.co.nz/
2. https://laurichcomm.co.nz/
3. https://www.wearehmc.co.nz/
4. https://www.farmersweekly.co.nz/

Companies mentioned in this episode:

1. HMC
2. King Street Advertising
3. Large Agri-communications
4. Farmers Weekly
5. Fonterra

You're listening to Crunch from New Zealand PR agency hmc. These are short, sharp conversations for business leaders on strategic communication and reputation management.

Learn what works, hear real examples and leave with some actions to implement straight away. Tap, follow so you don't miss our next episode. Here we go.

There's a phrase that comes up a lot when marketing and comms. People talk about farmers and rural audiences here in New Zealand, and that is they're harder than ever to reach. And in some ways that's true.

Attention is stretched, people are busy, media is fragmented. But rural audiences, and particularly farmers, haven't tuned out. They've just become more selective, as I think we all have.

Today's Crunch episode is about what actually earns farmer attention now and what doesn't. Gaming attention isn't about shouting louder or adding more channels.

It's about understanding how farmers really engage, what feels worth their time and what cuts through as human and relevant.

To unpack that, I'm joined today by Chris Williams, founder of King Street Advertising, and Richard Rennie, director of Large Agri Communications and contributor at Farmers Weekly. Welcome to you both.

Hi, Heather, how are you? Hey.

G'. Day. Hey, nice to be here.

As the founder of Hamilton based creative agency King Street, Chris brings deep experience across media and marketing. And his firm has just released their latest rural media report entitled Marrying Tech and Tradition, which we'll be talking a lot about today.

And Richard has spent decades immersed in rural journalism and storytelling. He's had his own agri communications agency for just about as long as I have, and we've worked a lot together over the years.

Many of you will also know Richard for his work as a contributor at Farmers Weekly. And last but not least, I've been working with rural brands since my time at the Fonterra comms team 25 years ago.

And HMC has honed a specialty working with organizations in the ag sector.

So, gentlemen, I think between the three of us, we've got a sharp read on how rural audiences think, behave and decide what's worth paying attention to. So let's get into it. Chris, I'll have you kick us off because in your new research report you say farmers are harder to reach than ever before.

So break that down for us. How did you come to that conclusion? What are some facts that came through in that research?

Right. I suppose with so many aspects of our lives, we are now faced with much more choice as well as a wider range of media choices.

On any given night, if you want to launch something on a Sunday night, you could reach near to 100% of the population on TV. Fast forward to now 26, 27 years later.

Of course you've got those channels still in existence, but then you've got so many other options to choose from. And the fact of the matter, there is a lot of it is, unlike back in those days, you kind of had to take what you were given.

Nowadays you can make a lot more choice around what you watch and engage with. The power has shifted to the viewer, the listener, the consumer of media in terms of how they make those choices.

And I think that's the main kind of aspect that I would consider to be the main change that's happened.

Yeah, I think that's a good way to think about it, isn't it? It's like 20 years ago you were served up the news.

That's right.

You just sat there on your couch and watched the news. But now you're in control.

Yes, well, yeah, you can see the news as it happens. And in fact, calling the 6 o' clock news the news is oftentimes not right because you've already seen it and you just want to kind of check in again.

And that has changed so much. And what you're finding is that there's a segment of the population that never have and never will watch the six o' clock news.

You know, my kids being an example.

However, at the same time, they're actually still really well informed because they're kind of getting stuff on their, you know, whatever feeds the news.

They'll mock their parents for watching the six o' clock news.

Yeah, well, they do. They think I'm some old man. Possibly they're right. Getting older.

And Chris.

Yeah.

And Richard, I guess from an editorial point of view, do you feel that farmers are harder to reach too?

Yeah.

And it's interesting what Chris said about the Sunday evening launch and that was often a popular thing for launching Drench or something like that, wasn't it? Yeah, or grass seed was a common one.

From a rural print media sense, it would be wait for the farmers weekly rural news or whatever to turn up in your letterbox on the Monday or the Tuesday with the news in it. Well, you know, that's gone.

And I think that's partly a demographic shift. We have got farmers that are getting older, but we do have another generation of younger farmers coming through quite successfully.

Just as Chris said, they're not waiting around till the news turn up in the mailbox on the Tuesday. And I just had a young farmer the other day say, I always look at you guys online. I'd never get it out of the box on a Tuesday or whatever. Yeah.

So it's sort of in that print sense as much as in the visual television sense too.

Yeah, so some big drops in the magazines and daily papers. I was quite surprised by that. You're talking really, really significant. That's not to say that those options aren't still really.

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Iconic. Cause I mean, I read the paper twice a day. I mean, I read the Waikat Times, the New Zealander every day.

I read the farmer papers and things like that. But what you're seeing is that the audience that were the heavy users of that, they're getting older and to be put it bluntly, they're dying off.

And what you're seeing is that the younger folk coming through who never pick up a newspaper in anger in their lives. But that doesn't mean that those titles, so to speak.

So if you were talking about stuff or New Zealand Herald and the pharma publications, those titles are still being read, but it's all online. And so what you're seeing is a juxtaposition to that. Is that the rise of the online kind of stuff as well. So, yeah, I was quite shocked by that.

But the rest of it, I think, was as you would expect.

Yeah, yeah. How about you, Richard, when you had a look through that research, anything surprised you?

Yeah, I was surprised even like those big hitters like radio took a drop, which is. Yeah, usually radio is a real stalwart for rural advertising, wasn't it?

What it also coincided with, I mentioned this to you earlier, Heather, is that it comes at the same time as aut did a survey on trust in the news, which has really taken a hit, and New Zealand is particularly bad for it.

Where that sits in exact numbers, but we are pretty low in terms of trust level in the Western world and our news source as consumers, which is really. Oh, I thought that was quite surprising.

But yeah, yeah, I mean, as an aside, I suppose you look at some of the things that get passed off as news these days and like yesterday these guys were having a go at Chris Luxon for having a blank diary during January or something. What the hell does that mean? He was saying he was at work. I'm sure he was working, but he doesn't have to have a full diary.

And this made the news is all on the feeds and all that kind of thing. It's like, oh my God, no wonder these guys aren't trusted.

Yeah, yeah.

And it comes at a time, I think, when you'd think they'd have more to do because the number of journalists in New Zealand's dropped from four and a half thousand to 15,000 or something only in the last four years. It's like just being gutted. You'd think they'd be pretty busy. Yeah, Fewer of them here.

They were interviewing him in the. Wherever it is, the steps of the Beehive or wherever the hell it was.

It's like, what the hell?

Why is this a story?

Why is this occupying your time?

So they got nothing to blame but themselves on that front, in my view.

It seemed like from your research, correct me if I'm wrong, Chris, but it seemed like the numbers were saying basically that consumption in the news in general has gone down a little bit. Like people's time and attention isn't there as much as it was before.

Maybe they're deciding to watch YouTube videos or TikTok videos or something instead.

But yeah, I mean the streaming services, I mean, like YouTube is enormous and we actually do quite a lot placement on YouTube. It's the biggest, most watched streaming platform out of them all, yet doesn't get talked about as much. It sits really, really strong.

So yeah, I think that's more the case.

And I mean there's combination of factors at play, I think, but one of them is as your point, Richard, is around, well, what the hell are we going to trust here?

And added to that kind of part of it and possibly contributing is the fact that you make up a story on AI and put an image up and pass it off to cs and that's going to happen more and more.

It's Interesting.

Something the Farmers Weekly we've been pushing the last couple of years is the Newsguard Trust Shield, which is an internationally rated means of putting a trust index on a news outlet. And the Farmers Weekly actually rates it 100% and it shares that only with the Herald and Spin Off. I think it is.

It's interesting that whilst readership may be less of a physical paper, there's still quite an appetite there for if I am going to source my news, what can I trust? What is valid? Yeah. So there's a definite appetite for authenticity there.

That's right.

And I can think from an advertiser's point of view, okay, on one hand, you do have to look at the numbers, the reach and whatnot, but you also have to be very mindful of the engagement level with that title or publication, whatever.

Never mind the length, feel the quality.

I agree, I agree.

Because I mean, if you trust that source, if it's the Spin off or the Herald or Farmers Weekly and so on, then you are much more attuned to the advertising, messages and whatnot that are coming your way from there. Yeah, really important.

Yeah. And that's a big factor, I guess, when we're doing work for clients is it's gold to get them in those trusted sources.

There's an important thing we call guilt by association.

Yes.

And, you know, just having your message, you know, you might get massive reach and so on, but it's not a trusted or reputable source. I mean, to me that's not worth it.

And you hope that. The flip side of that, Chris, is you have the guilt by association. The flip of that is really a halo effect, isn't it?

Oh, you did right.

There is a really, really important aspect in terms of your level of engagement with a media choice does help in terms of the advertising cut through.

And we will get that. I mean, I had it just last week, a farmer said, oh, look, I get about.

I think on Monday or Tuesday I might get five different things in my mail, but I go through and only keep your paper to read and go straight into the recycling bin next door.

There we go.

There we go. Interesting.

Well, let's talk a little bit about the channels, like what your research found, Chris, in terms of what are the top channels that farmers are looking at? Are there ones that. That five years ago were at the top, now they're slipping down or the ones that are rising up? Talk to us a little bit about that.

Yeah. So radio is still the most used, so to speak. There has been a drop, as Richard was saying is still high.

You know, that's to be understood when you kind of think the daily behaviors of a farmer. And we've also got the data that tracks, you know, when the times of the day, when they're most. Most heavy.

Right in the milking shed in the morning, we want to listen to the Jamie McKay thing in. And then later in the day, the unaddressed mail is still pretty heavy. But that comes down to content. It's a word I hate, to be honest. Content.

But anyway, it comes down to the stuff that's in it. The Internet is still strong. And tv, rightly or wrongly, although it has dropped, is still pretty strong as well.

So they're kind of like the top four. And then there's a bit of a drop away when you talk about the magazines and newspapers and so on. But you've got to also factor in with Internet.

I mean, that's a very broad statement to make because you're talking about streaming services, you're talking about social media getting the news and all those kind of things which we can only break down to a certain level.

Most channels have an Internet component at

them, otherwise you're going to fall over.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So, Richard, I guess thinking about the rural media, what's your perspective on how they're evolving to add that?

Yeah, I think YouTube videos or the

EDMs or whatever it is.

Yeah, I think. And look, obviously I'm probably, after 21 years, I'm probably a bit biased. I haven't written for any other rural newspaper than Farmers Weekly.

But I think, I think the efforts there that I've seen to go into all the other platforms that you need to be in has been really wholesale and necessary. I mean, it's not cheap to print a hard copy paper every week. 80,000 issues around the country is a big deal.

And if you can find other ways to get what you do out broader and cheaper, which obviously the Internet is, then it's as much a means of getting your profile out there as it is about actually getting the news out there, I think, without actually having to print more physical copies.

So in that respect, you've got a media platform that really has evolved to a media platform from a printed publisher as such, where the hard copy paper is still the core physical thing.

But everything else that's come out of that, since you've got daily electronic newsletter, as you said, Heather, coming out, there's regular postings on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. I think we've got 11,000 LinkedIn followers, 50,000 Facebook and about 7,000 on Instagram. So it has really been a wholesale.

Okay, what do we need to do to cover all our bases here in quite a short time? I think full credit to Dean and Kushler as owners for what they've done to focus on that.

Because it wasn't that long ago it was really just the paper and a website that would get updated, but wasn't updated as much as it is now.

Right, yeah. From a PR perspective, when we're working with clients, we're always thinking about the mix. It's like it's never in one place. Right.

So looking at all those different channels, what's the readership, what's the listenership, what sort of audience do we want to reach? And what's the mix? When it comes to advertising, you're always thinking about the mix as well.

Yeah, definitely. Because, I mean, you know, you can't expect just to go on one platform and then kind of be done with it. You know, you do have to consider a mix.

And then, of course, there's the bigger platforms, the radios and the publications and so on, but then there's all the other online options, the EDMs and, you know, social and all that kind of thing. It's so much more fiddly now.

Yeah, it is. You've got to juggle a lot of stuff. I won't say. I mean, I did a piece at the start of the year about, if I die, can I be buried on the farm?

Which, okay, for whatever reason, it seemed to be a good January story to do. And we ended up doing, probably, realistically, three, four different versions of that one story. One was the printed one.

And then I did a piece to camera sort of talking about, well, you know, if you die and you want to be buried on the farm, how easy is that to do? It turns out it's not very easy at all. You wouldn't hold your breath getting approval. You'd probably be dead.

So there was that story which went up on Instagram a little lighter, and then I did a post on LinkedIn, and then we did a podcast, which we talked about as well, for the weekly news podcast. And each one sort of had a slightly different take on it, but it was sort of like, well, how can we maximize?

Cause it was a little bit of a different idea to follow, but it was January, a slow news time of the year, and it was something I'm quite interested in. Anyway, when you sit back and look at the effort that goes into a story like that now, it's quite a lot more.

You don't just bash out a story and put it up and then it's gone.

No, no, that's right, eh?

Yeah.

That's a hell of a lot more

work, you're thinking, hang on, how can I get more juice for the squeeze out of it sort of thing.

Yeah. Right, so just out of interest, can you get your ashes spread on the farm?

Oh, easy. Ashes, no worries. Very, very hard.

Oh, is that right? So, all right, okay. That's what happens.

In theory, if you die within 30 k's of the local cemetery, you've got to go to the cemetery. And technically, if you're beyond that, outwardly it's you could be buried.

But when you've got to go through the local council and public health rules and stuff, it's, nah, you wouldn't go there.

Oh, right, okay. There we go.

So just for future reference, our listeners

are getting a little bit of that extra information today.

Yeah, exactly, yeah. Bit of a bon. A bit of a bonus movement. No extra charge for that.

Yeah. Things you never thought you'd know.

Speaking of channels, one of the things I wanted to talk about was the demise of the community paper. So sad, so sad.

And I know, like, for us, like reaching that farmer audience, it was just so important to us when they were around and we like grieved the loss of the community paper. What's filling that space, Chris? What have you seen filling that space?

I mean, it's such a shame. I grew up in Te Aaumuti. I couldn't believe it when they shut down the Te Amuti Courier.

I used to go to my mother's house and read the Courier every time I was there. I've been on the front page of the Courier with my brother. So what's replacing it?

I mean, we're having to supplement that with more targeted social media activity and so on. We use neighbourly a bit from time to time, which is kind of helpful. But really there's no one thing that's done that job.

So you basically have to duck and dive with two or three different options. In terms of the changes that have happened in the media space since I've been involved, to me, that's one of the saddest things that's happened.

Yeah, I agree, because they've had a big place in the local chatter, so to speak.

For those of us trying, you know, brands trying to reach farmers, it's just, it's a big irritation. But I think about the role in the community that those little community papers you Know played that is just lost.

And like Richard, I'm thinking, you know, I have seen articles talking about like news deserts, like there's places all over the world where actually there is no news covering anything that's happening. And like, you know what's happen if there's a really cool thing happening in the rural sector in the west coast, like who's covering that news and at

the week, it is something we do still try to add into the mix. So you have to look at it from a point of view. Has this got implications beyond the immediate community?

Because it is a national publication if you like.

But yeah, I think we have a pretty good stab at things that come up that might be an issue around a certain catchment farmers having a problem with the local council or something like that, which is usually they are echoed in other parts of the country as well. So it's often pretty easy to say, oh yeah, that's something we could run with.

Interestingly though, the stories that do get really strongly picked up, Farmers Weekly readers, they will still read the news, they'll read the markets about what stock are selling at, especially at the moment, cause they're worth gold. But the other thing is people in on farm stories still rate really highly. Farmers like to read about other farmers, what they're doing definitely.

They're often the stories that take the longest to do because you've got to get there, you've got to spend time there, you've got to check back with the farmer on a lot of stuff. There is still good mileage in that and that is something that, as I said, they tend to be the more expensive stories to do time wise.

But often we've been fortunate the weekly to have sponsors that will sponsor that slot like Rabobank I think for a while sponsored the on farm stories and did a video of the farm as well to cover that off on our YouTube channel. So yeah, farmers definitely still like reading about other people. Farmers particularly, they tend to rate pretty well.

It's a thing that'll never go out of style, I don't think.

No, no. And it's interesting, isn't it? I mean I started off early on working with you too, Heather. You know, a lot of testimonial work.

We used to do a lot of testimonials of farmers had used a product and I still think that's a pretty solid kind of avenue for endorsement.

Because farmers, there's two main sources that they will take for adopting a product and it's the word of a trusted neighbour or family member and a trusted news source for it.

We always think about farmers leaning over the fence and talking to the neighbors. You? Yeah, farmers talking to farmers. There wouldn't be too many PR strategies that don't have that as part of the strategy.

And it was often used by the animal health sector, wasn't it?

I don't know whether it's a reflection that the animal health sector just haven't had many new products in the last few years or whether they've run out of farmers to talk to. I don't know. But I sometimes think it's a little bit of a neglected area of endorsement that doesn't get the use it probably should still.

Yeah, good little tip there, Chris. We talked just briefly a little bit about tv. I just wanted to talk about that a little bit more.

You know, I guess maybe wrongly, some of us might think, oh, no one's watching TV anymore, if you think about TV one or TV three or whatever. But your research looks like it's sort of proved that statement wrong.

Yeah, I think the demise of TV has been greatly exaggerated, so to speak.

Okay, interesting. But when you talk about tv, like is that TV went on Freeview or is that. What are you talking about there when you talk?

So we talk about TV in the broader sense.

If you're watching Netflix, you're watching your TV, but the audience on the free to air channels 1, 2 and 3 has definitely dropped, no question about it. I mean, as I was saying earlier, you know, you could get rich, everyone before the rise of the streaming channels and so on.

But now you'd be lucky to get a maximum of, you know, 60, 70% reach across them all over any given time. But with farmers, they've got some good habits when it comes to those things.

So, you know, the likes of the news, they like to watch the weather reports. Yes, obviously country calendar's still really strong and other programs as well.

Most of them are in peak, which is, you know, in that six to eight kind of time. Pm but then of course, you've got the sky kind of side of things, which is, you know, they have heavy subscribers and watches of Sky.

Okay, just the numbers here. They're 72% more likely to be a Sky subscriber.

Right.

Wow. And they are. What's the number? 147% more likely to be sky sport now subscribers. So really strong.

So, you know, no surprise that they'll be kind of sitting down watching the All Blacks and the Super Rugby and whatever else. So it's still a really powerful medium.

The other thing I'd say about TV is that there's a massive halo effect, as we described before, of being on tv.

Yes.

If you're on TV either as a, you know, as one of your stories, I saw you had something on the other night on seven Sharp. And from an advertiser point of view, it just kind of says okay. It gives them a lot more.

Incredible.

Absolutely, absolutely. If you're advertising on tv, okay, you must be big and strong and credible. Absolutely.

And I think that's what's happened is that you're seeing more of the bigger organizations kind of doing the TV thing because not only is it costly to run it, it's also you need to spend money on. But, you know, don't underestimate the power of tv. I think it's still really strong.

And for us. Yeah. For getting like something on tv, you're right. It is a credible source.

And it's funny because a lot of clients still come to us and say we really would like to get something on tv. And then you think, well, actually the viewership isn't that big. You know, the audience reach isn't that big.

But once you get a story on there, you can then post it on your social media and send it out in an EDM and you can make it work for you really hard.

That link absolutely right.

As an assignment aside, my wife, we own another business called Kiwi Cabins and we were at the Auckland home show, it must be a couple of years ago now, they did a story on how everything was going, the economy, et cetera.

And Catherine got interviewed by this one news person and she was just standing there in front of her site with the Kiwi Cabins branding behind it would have been about a 15 or 20 second spot that night. We had about 3,000 hits on the website just from that one story on a Saturday night. Have you seen any analysis from your story the other night?

Oh, the client who was on they just have been inundated with like web hits and inquiries and product orders, you

know, from one story, the case rests. I mean, it's still really powerful.

Yeah, Richard. I guess semi related, you know, the power of video, I suppose is we've seen that rise in the last couple years.

A and Farmers Weekly, I know, has a YouTube channel. Is that something that is becoming more important?

It's actually something I think we could probably do even more with, Heather. And I personally sort of am in a late career pivot. I've had to go from calling myself a print journalist to a multimedia journalist.

Yeah, I see you out there doing

your videos and making videos.

Never too late to have a title change.

Previously known as.

So from a personal, professional point of view, it's involved a bit of suck and see and just sort of take a few errors and chopping heads off and things like that to get it. I wouldn't say right, but better. But in a way, professionally, that's an interesting challenge to have. And I think if you're coming from.

Sorry, I'm digressing a little bit, but. But if you're coming from the point of view that you call yourself a journalist, it doesn't really matter how you deliver the story.

If you've got the basic ability to communicate, to get your facts right and to string a sentence together, it doesn't matter what platform you're using. And I think that's something to be embraced because the time is now for taking whatever path you need to take to get your story out there.

People like to read and watch and see more than they do like to read. Well, so be it. That's how it is. We're not gonna change that.

You can stand there and rail against it as an old guy in your mid saying, well, no one reads any more data. Well, so what? That's your problem. It's not their problem. You've just got to adapt to that.

And so we've started doing more things like write the story, but embed a short video within the story that might be a bit of a summary of whatever it is you've written about. So, okay, I don't want to read the 600 words he's got there.

I'll look at the video that talks about at the same time, those 600 words sort of ideally need to be nearer 550 now. And that's sort of not a hard limit that we have on what we do. But it is true. Trying to condense your writing down, get it tighter.

Because people don't want to read much over 500 odd words anymore, if they are reading at all. And that's actually not a bad discipline to have. It just means sometimes you have to think extra hard about, well, how deep can I go into this?

Maybe not quite as deep as I thought, but maybe that's something we come back to down the track. Yeah, yeah. And I've got something like that running at the moment on oversea of the nutrient software package and issues around that.

You think, man, who read that? Some must have read it.

But I don't think it's a bad thing to chop things up and take your readers along with you on a bit of a chronological journey as you get into this stuff, because people have been assaulted with information all the time. They can't take in two bigger chunks at once anymore.

Yeah, exactly. I agree with that.

Chris, going back to your research, I wanted to talk a little bit about podcasts, because that's something obviously in the last couple of years is rising up and up. It's not in the top two or three channels, I suppose, that farmers are consuming, but more and more they're. They're looking at consuming those. So.

Yeah. What did you find out about that?

Yeah, so that is really one that's on the rise. I mean, I was kind of a little bit late to the podcast thing, so I've been listening to a lot, listen to them a lot.

Probably listen to more podcasts than radio nowadays. I did see some numbers last week. I think it's something like around about 30% of farmers are listening to podcasts quite regularly.

I think it's around about that. Okay, so. And that's, I kind of think, really significant and will continue to grow.

What I think is the key thing there is that your intention, if you've made the conscious decision to listen in and you're really, really listening intently.

Yeah. For a long time, it can be. Some podcasts are like two hours.

Yeah, that's right.

And you're basically.

You're very engaged with it, I suppose, unlike if you're driving along, the radio is going, and, you know, you're sort of in and out of attention with it. So I kind of think in terms of message delivery platform, it's really, really strong because people are, you know, they're listening very intently.

And I know my own behavior would be the same. I don't. I don't tend to zone out at all, really, if I'm listening to really.

So I kind of think if you can get on some of the, you know, reputable platforms, et cetera, a really, really good option to take. Of course, you still need people who confront well and tell the story well, all those kind of things.

Yeah, somebody's going to stutter and stammer over their lines. But so, yeah, I'd say definitely a very strong option. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. And I think the great thing about podcasts is they have their niche audiences.

You know, some podcasts are getting a huge audience, but Some are really in that niche space, and that's okay, you know, if they only have 500 listeners, but they're right in your sweet spot as an organization. Well, then we want get our client on that one. Yeah. So you're doing a bit of podcasting as well?

Yeah, we do. Well, the Farmers Weekly's been doing a news podcast every week. On Thursdays, Fridays, it comes out, I think, hosted by managing editor Brian Gibson.

And that tends to be split up sort of a news summary. And Brian might talk to myself or Neil Wallace about what we've covered that week. And that'll be fairly open about just what's going on.

And then there'll be a second interview, which might be a bit of a feature interview. It might be about what livestock markets are doing, or maybe it's with one of the main stories, subjects of the story that week.

And then the third one's a Fed Farmers sort of. It's a bit more of a sponsored sort of slot that they have with one of their spokespeople about some issue that's big for them.

I think the thing with the podcast is that has quite a clear purpose, and I think you need to. Seems everybody wants to get in and do a podcast. Everyone's doing a podcast. That's true, but I think you need to be quite clear.

It's a little bit like pushing the button on publishing a paper that you're gonna publish for however long the rest of your life or whatever. Okay, what are we gonna do each week? Does this have a life that we can sustain into the duration? And for the Weekly, it's pretty easy.

It's a bit like dipping a ladle into the river to scoop out some news each week. There's always something flowing past.

But I think you've gotta look pretty hard at your organization if you're thinking about doing podcast, to think, okay, what can we do to sustain this for however long? Or is this just gonna fizzle because somebody left, or we just ran out of ideas or whatever? I think it's important to have that idea there.

Just because you're doing a podcast isn't gonna get people necessarily to listening.

Yeah, well, that's very, very true. I mean, I think we know there are quality podcasts that have been sustainable, and then there were ones that are just sort of a flash in the pan.

I think when it comes to, like either advertising or getting a client on there, you know, podcasts should be able to tell you what is their listenership and that sort of thing and what's their audience makeup and that sort of thing. Because you can tell that sort of thing on your podcast.

And here we are doing a podcast.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Social media.

I just wanted to end I guess by talking a little bit about social because it really has, Chris, hasn't it like taken a spot I suppose in farmers attention in a big way, whether it's an ad or organic posts or whatever happening on there. Can you talk a little bit about farmers habits on social media?

Yeah. So obviously it's been enormous, the rise of social and you know, you're talking about multi platforms, Facebook being obviously really big.

Then you've got the likes of, you know, Instagram and TikTok, LinkedIn and so on and YouTube.

Would it be a social channel?

That's right.

I mean it's absolutely enormous and you can obviously you can be very targeted with it in terms of, you know, geography and behaviors and things like that. So it's an option that we've got to look at all the time. Yeah, but then it comes down to what you're putting on, what you're sharing, I suppose.

And so that comes back to the, you know, the same sort of principles in many respects.

You've got to look on brand, so to speak, you've got to be believable and you've got to rely on, relate as closely as you can to that audience what's happening on social media nowadays. I mean you've got to really the fake news kind of thing is just

out of control and it's ironic because you can and we're trying to do this at the weekly, I think probably not consciously recognizing it, but you can actually turn that downside of social media that AI generated slop or whatever you call it. You can actually turn it around to authenticate what you're doing.

Like I've started doing a bit more a piece to camera just talking about an article on like the dying on the farm cannot be buried on the farm piece. Just a short piece talking about okay, this is what we've got in the paper this week and a bit of visuals behind it maybe.

And it might only be 30 seconds but you're putting a face of the guy who wrote the article to the story. And I think farmers readers appreciate that. Washers because they, okay, it's not just a story on a page, it's actually the guy that wrote it.

It's not some AI friggin proxy guy

at the D his head and there he is there. So it's kind of funny.

You can actually turn that problem with social media of falsity and AI into a positive if you want to, if you want to take the time and the effort to do it. And I see even news outlets like the Times of London, I see the New York Times is doing it.

I think they'll have one of the journalists who's written the story just saying. And that's basically where we got the idea from, sitting there talking. 30 seconds. This is what it is. This is what's happening in Iran right now.

And this is why President Trump's got to do data. And then it'll be a link to the story or whatever. And yeah, I think it's great.

That's clever. Yeah, yeah, very much so.

You know, it's got a place and you know, you can, nowadays you can measure it pretty quickly as to how things are going and so on right through to, you know, conversions, if that's what you're kind of going after. And also, I suppose, going back to the replacement of the community papers and so on.

Yes, yeah.

You know, you can, you know, get

on paper, localize it.

That's right. And you can go on those little community sites, post things, go join those groups and whatnot, and get your brand in amongst those kind of things.

The rise of social media has been one of the most profound changes in our lives, in my career, that's for sure.

Yeah.

For us, I guess it's just there all the time, it's finding, bringing something of value to your audience, I suppose that's gonna stop their thumb from scrolling.

That's right.

And going back, I guess, to what you were saying earlier, Richard too, that farmers seeing farmers faces in video of farmer and that sort of thing that gets them to stop. So it's like, yeah, that's I suppose, the challenge.

So I guess looking back at this research, Chris, what would be, you know, if you have a brand who's in that ag sort of sector and they're thinking we gotta ramp things up this year sort of thing. What are a couple pieces of advice from what you found through this research?

One of the things, I mean, the environment this year is pretty positive.

Yeah.

So I kind of think there's definitely a chance to maximize that.

I suppose align yourself with a positive mindset for a start with your brand, get your story straight, get a really strong value proposition, all those real basics, come up with ideas, creating creative kind of execution that's going to get attention, cut through all those kind of things. Those things are never going to go out of style.

Everyone's got A finite budget or some have got millions to spend but most have got good budgets they've got to keep control of.

So it's a case of trying not to spread it too thinly and do a few things really well and then do all your basics in terms of your analytics and your follow ups and all those kind of things. But also from my perspective, I remain skeptical about all minutes media, pictures, so to speak.

Okay.

And just be careful around some of the lines that you get told, particularly in the digital space around, you know, the impressions and the, all this commentary. Yeah, I'm very skipped, very, very skeptical about all of it.

Just be careful that if someone's going to tell you they're going to, you're going to get 5 million impressions or something for.

Yeah, yeah.

And bearing in mind that there were what, how many dairy farms are there? 10,000. You know, that's exactly. Don't get taken in by it. You've got think about quality rather than quantity with those things.

We've become very short term focused with a lot of things. Obviously we're working so we need to chop and change. Da, da. Always take a long term perspective in terms of how things are going to be traveling.

Nice. Yeah.

How about, Richard, if you have talking to a company who wants to get more of their news about their people, their products, what are some things that you'd say to them?

Yeah, I think it's almost, if you can have a pitch that almost has the company or the benefit almost as a secondary outcome or beneficiary of whatever the story is, I think that helps.

If it's because a certain farmer has managed to, I don't know, maybe clean up their waterways after incurring a regional council fine using this particular piece of kit that's almost more of a story than oh, this bit of gear will clean up your waterway. Because yeah, if there's sort of a positive outcome that is almost incidentally coming from whatever the particular technology when that may be.

But also I think it's interesting what Chris is saying about what he'd say to clients. Having to have good values and a good foundation for a product, a good message. It's almost in a funny way that almost applies to journalism as well.

You know, having a clear idea of what it is the story is, I think a good solid moral and business foundation for what you're doing. It will always find a place to be told rather than just, well, I've got this great new bit of gear. Look what it can do.

It's so much more Powerful than the last one or so much more faster or whatever that would work probably 10 years ago, but didn't work now.

Yeah, I agree with what you're both saying there. I guess a big one for us too.

And thinking about your research, Chris, and the different channels that farmers are looking at for us when we're working with clients, we really want them to be seen as a leader in their field. Right. And so having those credible stories, obviously making it about people, about their clients more than the product.

But also I guess when you're thinking about where do you want that story to go to? Or again, we're thinking about a mix.

Cause if you're, I guess, a leader in your field, you're seen everywhere thinking about that mix of channels, I suppose that we're getting our clients into as well.

And I sometimes think maybe there's a place for more of a. Chris, you appreciate more than I would. But we used to have the stories like the Anchor Butter family, remember that? It took the audience on a bit of a journey.

I sometimes think maybe that's been forgotten a bit. Toyota was quite good at it too, weren't they? And I know that's sort of a very much almost a long form advertising now, isn't it?

If there's such a thing.

But I sometimes wonder where there is sort of a place for, if there's in a campaign to have a particular farmer or someone and take your consumers, your listeners, your viewers or whatever on a journey with them.

Yeah, more of a cereal sort of thing. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know, I just. We don't sort of see much of that.

You sort of see just a flash of whatever it is they've got and that's it, you go on to the next thing.

As I was saying before, I kind of think taking a long term view is kind of. We kind of need to do that more because we've become so fixated on getting the, you know, here's today's analytics, et cetera, et cetera.

And you know, that's sort of like today was, you know, looking at numbers for today. Yeah. Rather than thinking, okay, we're in 12 months, two years time, we're kind of where do we want to be?

And you know, we just need to take the approach of, you know, the water dripping on a stone.

Yes, for sure.

You know, just keep on pressing on.

Yeah. Whether it's your advertising strategy or PR strategy.

Yeah.

You just got to have a long term plan and be sustainable and keep going. Yeah.

And have the courage to start Stick with it.

Dead right. You're not going to trip the light fantastic every day.

Yeah.

But if you're making steady progress, then I reckon there's a lot to be said for it.

One of my team members the other day was talking about a company that not a client, but they were talking about desperate little bursts was her. You know, this is all they were doing was desperate little bursts in the media. You know, it's like, that's not going to achieve anything.

No, no, it's not.

You got to have a plan.

And then I kind of think if you've got a real solid row roadmap, strict tram lines that you're sticking to, then you're in a really good position to do the little kind of, okay, here's an emergency, let's get on.

Tactical stuff.

That's right. But the train is still on its tracks, you know, and funnily enough, the

things that resonate, you know, As a kid growing up on a farm, I remember often things would turn up in the mail.

You know, it might have just been a letter opener or a ruler or something, but a calendar was a regular thing turn up to put on the wall from the local furt company or something. You hardly see that anymore.

No, you don't.

I from first hand experience with my wife's company when they have done that, it always resonates. So people love being given something because they're not given much these days.

No, no, that's right, that's right.

A physical thing.

I know, dead right. Yeah, yeah. At Christmas time, our kitchen would be overloaded with a lot of stuff. But now we get bugger all.

My wife's company, they one start of a carving season, they sent to all their clients a block of energy chocolate. Busy time coming up. You're going to need this. That's nice and simple, but loved it.

Yeah, right, there we go.

I think often we get caught up in this digital promotional space, but it's often the hardware, hard copy of things.

Stuff you can feel and touch.

Physical things that can see, touch and taste. In a case of chocolate.

Yes. Yeah, cool. Okay, well, I'm just gonna change tack entirely.

Those who listen to Crunch regularly will know we end each podcast with a lunch question because crunch stands for crucial chats over lunch. So since we're talking about the rural sector today, I thought I'd ask you gu the question.

Where's the most amazing rural or natural setting you've ever had? Emile.

Oh my God. I didn't get to this part when I read your. I'VE come very unprepared. So. Over you.

I'll give you time for it. Yeah. I had to think long and hard about that. For me, it comes back to.

It's not super high or anything, but. And it's just such a great, wonderful spot. I mean, we don't own the farm now, but. And it looks north up north Waikato.

And it was February, so it probably was a drought or getting close to it, but very warm, crispy grass. We had our oldest daughter, she was the only child we had at that stage. She was with us, sort of wandering around, just learning to walk.

We had some heifers in the paddock. I don't know why they were there, but they wandered up to her and licked her hair. I remember that. Which freaked her out a bit, but.

And we just had like a picnic up there and was a really stunning summer evening. And it was our wedding anniversary. And yeah, it was just. Just a good spot and nothing particularly great. It's probably cold roast chook, I suppose.

Something. Something that was portable, but yeah. And just a really nice spot still. Somewhere that's very close to my heart.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Very cool.

Fantastic.

Yeah. Chris, any ideas?

Yes. So there's a walk at Mount Poronge called the Nikao Loop Walk.

You go up the Limeworks Loop Road and you stop there and then you walk up and you go along the Kani Whanawha Stream and you do a little loop and come back just as the track meets the mountain. There's actually kind of like a. Is it an island, basically, that's surrounded by the river and you can walk across and there's this little island.

So when my kids were quite young, one Christmas day, we went up there to this island and had Christmas lunch.

Wow.

Cool.

At the base of Mount Porongia, with a stream kind of around us and all those kind of things. And I still actually go to that part of the world quite often, just do that walk. And so that is just the most amazing part.

In the heart of Dehra country, little stream around. And Mount Pironga, which is my monga, grew up in Te Amuto. I could see it from my bedroom window. So, yeah, it's a beautiful spot.

I'D recommend that walk to anyone.

Great. Oh, very cool. When I first got married, Rod and I used to go on picnics a lot, but we haven't really done that in a long time.

But we've eaten in rural settings and places all over the world. But I actually, when I thought about this question, one thing keeps coming back to me and that is Hamilton Gardens.

Oh, yeah.

Having a picnic in the Rose Gardens and Hamilton Gardens, that's got to be one of the best spots in New Zealand, I think.

Yeah, dead right. It's amazing through there.

That's my cool spot.

It's bring back the picnic.

Let's do that.

Exactly.

Long neglected form of cuisine.

Great. Well, thanks, Chris and Richard for joining me today.

Chris, it's been really interesting to hear your insights around your latest rural media research.

And if any listeners would like a copy of that, they can simply email you@kriskingstreet.com that's Chrisingst Co NZ or searching out on LinkedIn, I suppose. And Richard, thanks for joining us as well.

It's been great getting your perspective on rural journalism and where things are headed in terms of rural media. So thanks everyone for tuning in. Yeah. And we'll see you next time.

Thanks for joining us today for Crunch, brought to you by New Zealand PR agency hmc. Be sure to tap the follow button so you don't miss our next episode. See you next time.