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Giving the Industry Guidance.

No one can tell the meat industry’s story better than someone who has actually lived it. Midan Marketing leads the conversation by bringing together unparalleled experience and deep understanding of what motivates today’s meat consumers.

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5 Reasons to Keep Educating Consumers

5 Reasons to Keep Educating Consumers

With age comes wisdom. That is the proverbial saying, right? I'd like to believe it now that I am um... well, now that I have more experience! Perhaps the saying should be With experience, comes wisdom. This month Midan Marketing turns 20! Since we consider ourselves...

More Video Stories Equals More Success

More Video Stories Equals More Success

I’ve travelled to several industry conferences this year and I’ve heard a variation of this quote at each of them: “If you don’t show up and tell your story, then your opposition, enemy or competitor will do it for you.” It honestly made a pretty big impact on me as...

The Power of Brand Strategy

The Power of Brand Strategy

Got a product that you’d love to shout about from the mountaintops, but you’re just not sure if anyone will hear you? Well, that’s where brand strategy comes in. Creating a path to market is a step-by-step journey. The formula for winning lies in leveraging brand...

Takeaways From CattleCon 2024

Takeaways From CattleCon 2024

Beef by the numbers, and good beef sustainability – my top takeaways from CattleCon 2024 Given my background, my passion and my personal “why,” few things make me happier than arriving at a conference filled with cowboy hats, jeans and boots – worn by the “real...

AMC 2024 Top 10 Takeaways

AMC 2024 Top 10 Takeaways

The 2024 Annual Meat Conference was the largest ever held, with more than 2,300 attendees gathered in Nashville to celebrate all things meat. Educational sessions focused on what’s next in technology, sustainability and consumer trends, while the Exhibit Hall featured...

Gen Z Consumers: Shaping the Future of Meat

Gen Z Consumers: Shaping the Future of Meat

Like every generation, Gen Z was indelibly shaped by the environment they grew up in. Gen Zs were the first generation to be raised completely in the digital era, have been exposed to heightened climate awareness and experienced a global pandemic during a pivotal time...

5 Tips To Connect With Meat Consumers

5 Tips To Connect With Meat Consumers

The ice cream drips have dried to the picnic table, the swimming pools are calm and flat, and the campground fires where s’mores were made and stories were told have all been put out – and just like that, summer is over. A chorus of groaning kids knows exactly what...

New Consumer Segmentation 3.0 Research

New Consumer Segmentation 3.0 Research

Understanding today’s meat consumers has always been a moving target, but in the last couple of years the pace at which our customers are changing has accelerated. Between the pandemic, the economy and growing concerns around topics like health and sustainability,...

Reflecting on Meat’s Role

Reflecting on Meat’s Role

Earlier this year, “The societal role of meat – what science says” was published in the Animal Frontiers journal. This paper, along with the series of secondary papers quoted throughout, is the culmination of the work done during the International Summit on the...

Leveraging Social Media for Business Success

Leveraging Social Media for Business Success

Over the last decade we’ve all had a front row seat to the evolution of social media from essentially a digital toy for teenagers into a tool that is integral for business success. It has been interesting to watch how much more open the meat industry, particularly...

The Power of Consumer Segmentation

The Power of Consumer Segmentation

Have you ever watched an ad or a short video and been perplexed, or even said out loud, “I don’t get it.” Happens to me a lot, especially during live sporting events. The reason I don’t get it is that I am not the target for what is being advertised. Frequent readers...

3 Key Messages About Pork in 2023

3 Key Messages About Pork in 2023

At Midan, we talk a lot about “sharing your story” with consumers in an effort to make animal agriculture more accessible. Those of us in animal ag must make a conscious effort to step back to understand the consumer perspective. Getting a clear understanding of what...

Get to Know Gen Z Beef Shoppers

Get to Know Gen Z Beef Shoppers

In late August I had the privilege of tagging along with my daughter and her roommate as they went grocery shopping, preparing to start another semester at NYU. I was happy to come along as mom, but also excited to watch the process unfold as a marketer eager to see...

Visualize It To Memorize It

Visualize It To Memorize It

In school I would read books, but I would not retain the information for long. I noticed that I remembered material better when I saw it, whether it was an image or a diagram. When I realized that I was a visual learner my world became much easier. That’s why I enjoy...

Why 21 Is the New 7

Why 21 Is the New 7

Most of us have heard the adage that you have to repeat something seven times before it really sticks. From a marketing lens, that’s old news. In today’s landscape where ads, emails and content, content, content seep into every part of our lives, researchers say that...

How To Avoid Roadblocks in the Creative Process

How To Avoid Roadblocks in the Creative Process

Let’s imagine that you’re a company in need of creative work. Putting your vision in the hands of a marketing agency can be scary. As an Art Director, I’ve fielded many concerns working with clients from New York City to North Carolina, but the most common fear I’ve...

Keeping Meat on the Plate During Inflation

Keeping Meat on the Plate During Inflation

With summer grilling season coming to a close, retailers face many challenges in keeping meat in the cart this fall. It’s no surprise that 96% of consumers – almost double numbers from last fall - are leery of skyrocketing grocery prices,1 an ominous weekly headline...

Put Emotion at the Center of Video Marketing

Put Emotion at the Center of Video Marketing

Emotional connection is at the very core of who we are. As humans, we value that connection not only in our personal relationships but also when we’re being communicated to by brands. While advertisers have desperately been avoiding “direct sell” ads for some time...

Driving Pork Value Through Segmentation

Driving Pork Value Through Segmentation

Pork is a wonderful protein choice for consumers; it’s flavorful, healthy and affordable. For packer/processors and retailers, pork offers an opportunity to drive additional sales and dollars at the meat case if we follow the example set by beef and chicken. There are...

Three Meat Snacks That Are Making a Comeback

Three Meat Snacks That Are Making a Comeback

3D printing technology is not new to the food world – chocolatiers have been using the technology for years to create intricate shapes for their pieces. Chocolate, of course, is softened when heated and then hardens at room temperature. This makes it easy to heat...

Four keys to win over Gen Zs

Four keys to win over Gen Zs

College recruiting is an interesting genre of marketing. I am not talking about the recruitment of athletes but of scholars. For the past year I have been on the parent side of this, fascinated by the marketing efforts that went into capturing my daughter’s attention....

AMC 2021 Top Takeaways Video

Not being “on-site” didn’t stop the Midan team from capturing the key insights from the all-virtual AMC 2021. Watch our team members share their firsthand insights in our AMC Top Takeaways video below. And in case you missed it, be sure to check out our AMC Top 10...

AMC 2021 Top 10 Insights

The “State of Change” theme for AMC 2021 was more than apt, as the meat industry gathered virtually to reflect on a year of incredible upheaval wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, recognize the resilience of stake holders across the meat channel and share hard-won...

Consumer Insights Are The Key To Retail Success

Consumer Insights Are The Key To Retail Success

Data – it’s at the heart of every business decision. Should you run the same St. Patrick’s Day corned beef promotion as last year? What meat cuts do your shoppers usually gravitate toward in the early spring? Is there a new opportunity to cross promote fresh produce...

Public Relations: The red-headed stepchild?

I’ve been in the public relations industry for more than 20 years, and honestly, my parents still have no idea what I do. Their explanation to friends and family always entertains me when I happen to overhear it at a function or when it’s played back to me by family...

AMC 2020 Top 10 Blog

AMC 2020 Top 10 Blog

#MidanTakesAMC: Our team was on site at the 2020 Annual Meat Conference, hearing the latest facts and figures about the state of today’s meat industry.  We’ve distilled down two-and-a-half days of heavy-duty meat data into these top takeaways:1. Celebrate: We’re still...

The State of Women in Agriculture in 2020

The State of Women in Agriculture in 2020

Fellow agribusiness movers and shakers: Our industry is changing right before our eyes. According to the 2019 Agribusiness HR Review, 63% of agribusiness companies surveyed reported that the proportion of women in their workforce has grown over the past five years....

Replace My Bone-In Ribeye? Never.

Last week you read in Steve Hixon’s blog that he and I attended the Cultured Meat Symposium last November in San Francisco. Steve shared from a very personal perspective the dichotomy he faces daily as a voracious carnivore with a family unit that includes a...

Carbon Footprint: The on-pack label you didn’t know you needed

Want year-end success? Re-evaluate your plan now

“So, how did that work out?” This is a question my grandmother used to ask me with her hands on her hips and one eyebrow raised. You can guess the “I-told-you-so” tone. It was always after I had failed miserably at something I claimed I knew how to do. Nanny — as all...

I’m a Gen Z, NOT a Millennial and I love meat.

I grew up in the time of Silly Bandz bracelets, Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers. You see, I was born in ‘97 – right on the cusp of the generation change, so I may look like a Millennial, but I have many different shopping and eating habits than my older...

Millennials Want Meat

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in public and someone – presumably older than I am – makes a comment about how fast I type on my computer or on my iPhone. It never fails to surprise them – and it immediately categorizes me as a typical “Millennial.” You know...

Helping meat make the grade in college

In the last month, nearly 19 million students packed their bags and headed off to college. My son was one of them; he was starting his sophomore year.  Because he was moving into a house with two other young men versus the dorm, I found myself adding cooking supplies...

Stellar Client Support to Make Meat a Star

New Orleans is a culinary capital known for its seafood dishes: oysters Rockefeller, shrimp creole and court-bouillon are just a few in a long, distinguished list. But as a former resident I know firsthand that meat is an important part of local cuisine – it just...

Join the Beef and BBQ Party

May is National Beef and BBQ Month and we meat heads at Midan couldn’t be more excited to celebrate the cornerstone of our industry: meat. If you haven’t noticed by now, Midan is a passionate bunch about meat. We’re only half-joking when we say we eat, breathe and...

AMC 2019 Top 10 Blog

The 2019 Annual Meat Conference was all about how technology is dramatically impacting every facet of the meat business: the consumer, the product and the buying process. AMC sessions on artificial intelligence, omnichannel purchasing and the rise of meat alternatives...

Segment for $uccess

Segment for $uccess

“Who am I?” is one of the most fundamental questions of human existence, layered with the complexities and nuances of our experiences, our beliefs, our attitudes and our motivations. It is the same question we marketers and customer insights gurus ask ourselves every...

Why You Should Care About Segmentation Research

I know – you’re expecting a dry and stat-heavy blog about market research. But you’re only half right (I’m a research guy, of course I want to talk about research!), because what I am about to share is very exciting since it centers on the single most dynamic element...

Meat: The Benefits of the ‘Real Deal’

I love animals; they’re delicious. For me, this is more than a bumper sticker slogan; it’s a way of life. Growing up on a beef cattle farm in Georgia, no meal made it to the table without some form of animal protein on it. There was always plenty of ground beef (read:...

Tomorrow’s Meat Consumer: Are You Ready?

I recently had the honor of presenting at the 2018 World Meat Congress (WMC) in Dallas on June 1. Hosted by The International Meat Secretariat and the U.S. Meat Export Federation, WMC brought together more than 700 meat industry leaders from 40 countries to discuss...

At Midan, What We Do Is Who We Are

Happy New Year! It’s only the second week of 2018, but some of us (no names mentioned!) might already be wavering on those ambitious resolutions we made to do more of “this” and less of “that” in the coming year. While the new year offers a chance to start fresh, it’s...

Just Another Day at the Office…

If you know anything about Midan, you know it’s not just an empty slogan when we say that we live, breathe and dream about meat. Our recent annual Team Meeting bears this out in spades. While some companies jet off to Vegas or escape to Disney World to get away from...

How to Spot an Aging Idealist

This blog is the final in our series detailing each of six distinct meat consumer segments from our recent Meat Consumer Segmentation research. My sister and I have always been very different. She likes the heat, I like the cold. She likes spicy foods, I like sweet...

Urban Eclectics, Demystified

I have raised an Urban Eclectic. I am not exactly sure how it happened: one day I was doling out Cheerios to an infant in a high chair and the next I was sitting across from a 23-year-old eating kimchi for breakfast. If you’re not familiar with Midan’s recent Meat...

Not Your Average Carnivore

I love cooking for family and friends. Whether it’s during the holidays, watching a college football game, or a simple weekday dinner, I take pride in preparing my guests a delicious meal. My husband actually says that the easiest way to insult me is to say that you...

The Selective Foodies Party

Coca-Cola. Team Fitz. Vinegar-based BBQ sauce. Dog lover. Millennial. Thanks to the Meat Consumer Segmentation research study, I can now add a new label to my list: Selective Foodie. In December of 2016, Midan surveyed 2,200 meat eaters to better understand attitudes...

I’m a Premium Player. What About You?

When it comes to my shopping habits, I have always been one to know exactly what I need. I am big on making lists and hate going out of my way to make my purchases. Hello, my name is Haley Frazier and I am a Digital Content Coordinator at Midan Marketing. But I...

Five Opportunities to Sell More Fresh Meat

At Midan, our Market Research Team is always scoping out the consumer trends that are having the biggest impact on the meat industry. A key part of our job is to help our clients understand the implications those trends can have on their business. By assigning meaning...