01/03/06 Beef checkoff nutrition ads

American Rancher Beef checkoff funded advertising on beef nutrition is scheduled to begin appearing in consumer magazines this month. Paige Miller is executive director of advertising for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. Miller: "This is our ability to speak directly to the consumer because many times the nutrition message out in the media gets conveyed through the media and they convey their own message. This is our opportunity to tell our story and to make sure everyone understands the real facts." Miller says research shows that consumers who have seen the ads are left with a good impression. Miller: "The response is really exceptional. In fact we do an ad tracking study each year to try and determine how successful the ads are. And just for example for one of the numbers, 73% of the people feel better about eating beef after seeing those ads. And that's significant." The budget for nutrition ads in 2006 is 4.2 million dollars but Miller says that's only part of the story. Miller: "When the agency negotiates with the media for these placements we get something called added-value, free ads, advertorials that we are allowed to actually write. And we have in nutrition 1.5 million dollars of free added value that goes beyond our checkoff spending." The Cattlemen's Beef Board contracts with the NCBA for the nutrition advertising effort. I'm Bob Hoff.