The right words

[Kobus Jooste]

I’m not a marketer, but have been told that I am a very good writer.  Somehow my ability to string sentences together cannot override my desire, re-enforced by years of scientific training, to provide an accurate statement when asked a question.  That, apparently, is not good for marketing.  As a student I once attended a business plan writing workshop where the section on marketing was headed up by an enthusiastic woman telling us how we create hype around a brand and make people want it.  I was very sceptical of all this, and asked her on what percentage of the populous this mindless tactic worked.  As an example, I told her about my sunglasses.  I’m colourblind, and do not venture outside without a polarized pair at hand.  Now there is a company that perfected the method, and make the lenses that are put in most fashion brands.  They also do their own sunglasses at a fraction of the cost.  I told the marketing lady that you have to be obtuse to pay a company four times the value of an item because they put their logo on it.  Apparently the world is filled with obtuse people.  Apparently, when someone asks you if your commercial tunnel will turn a rapid profit, you should nod vigorously.  Saying “If you know what you are doing, you have a shot.  If you are stupid, you will fail” is not correct.  So there – I can add marketing to the list of things that I just do not comprehend.  Having no real sales experience sucks.  As a scholar, you have to prove competency and subject knowledge.  As a consultant, you have to show competency and come at a good price.  As a researcher, you have to be able to communicate your ideas around the perceived problem and your proposed solution.  I have a very good track record at those, but actually SELLING something? 

 

I got thinking about the world we live in now.  We have a mountain of examples of soaring success stories and downright abysmal failures of products that were really not all that dissimilar.  We all know the tech ones, but that is not my scene.  As a typical outdoorsy male South African, I do the fishing and hunting thing.  A few years ago, I inherited a marvellous rifle from my grandfather.  Actually it was my Great-grandfather’s, but he did not have it too long and it really is not that old.  Well-crafted, frightfully accurate, but a classic example of a product that came short in a product stand-off.  This is a 6 mm Remington, or a .244.  It lost out badly against the .243, which now dominates the 200 calibre scene in South Africa.  The folks over at Winchester, so I recall from my reading, thought the .243 would be an ideal small calibre plains rifle, while the gents over at Remington thought the only serious use for a small calibre such as their .244 would be as a varminter.  A small difference in approach, miniscule differences in packaging and overall performance, but a huge difference in market share.  While every small game hunter in my family strolls up to the ammo stores and pick a box of Winchester .243 off the shelf, I piece together my own cartridges from jealously guarded 6 mm Remington cases I got with the rifle, similar powder and custom bullets that cost way too much.  There is not much between .243 and .244, but as the former became the norm and the latter a curiosity, it is infinitely easier to own and operate a .243.  Still, I flat-out refuse to have the rifle altered to .243 calibre.  Why?  Because I do not mind the extra effort for the trade-off of knowing that I am the fourth generation of my family to use it as it was crafted.

 

So what does an obscure rifle have to do with aquaponics?  Is this not the difference between aquaponics and grocery shopping?  According to my clever uncle, the majority of people on this planet are grocery shoppers and way too few of my countrymen and women will want to fuss for 40 days to grow something that is lying two minutes away in the convenience store.  If this is true, then aquaponics run the risk of being a curiosity, the outcast of agriculture practice.  The optimist in me is telling the poor marketer to look for new words.  The right words that will make a person stop, look and think.

 

I look at the wonderful buzz around entities such as Sweetwater and Growing Power, the steady growth of commercial ventures and then I look at the problems facing the people on this planet: the modern trends in urbanization, food supply problems and a general awareness of the need for and demand for less food miles on our produce and I get highly motivated.  On international forums, I see glimmers of a new world where home food production and small scale commercial activity on a community level is growing rapidly.  For some it is a question of health, for some a question of self reliance, and yet for others it is a sense of community and personal development that is the draw card.  Aquaponics therefore is not about the product at all, but about the person.  Looking back at my previous blog, I was musing the problems I had with people willing to accept the poor quality of food available in stores, and understanding the benefits of sustainable farming.  Now, having chatted with some international friends, it sounds as if the problem is mainly on my side of the pond.  There seem to be a ready market for concerned citizens in other countries that scrutinize product labels to see where these were produced and what is all in there.  How I long to go to such a place.

 

Still, the opportunity here is just as great, once a good marketer has spread the right words to the target audience.  I really think that that is going to be the challenge for 2011.  Finding the right words to shift people’s mindset.  I will lean heavily on the old hands on the forum to try and comprehend what steps took place in their countries to make people interested in the type of produce that ultimately can be produced in a number of ways.  These individuals then went looking for a method, and many seem to be taking to aquaponics.  I’d like to understand what make them look, and what made them pick.  I think it is incorrect to use my own experience as a standard, as there are just not that many left-handed, colourblind 6mm Remington owners in the country.  Or am I mistaken?

[Kobus Jooste]

I think a lot of what have been added to the discussion makes a lot of sense in the context that it was supplied.  The market for organic products exists or is growing, the demand for the product can be determined and the prices that can be obtained makes the excercise viable, although the start would be on a small scale and expanding as the market allows.  The acceptance is there that there is likely a very large percentage of the populus that has geared themselves, through desire or out of need, to be way too busy to have a home system, and to these people, convenience, cost and quality floats around in some 3-dimentional matrix that allows for a marketer to decide how to package the product.

 

In my context, the desire for organic is low, the price of the produce is very important, but the running costs and low value of the fish in an aquaponic operation makes the margins slim and the ability to target price limited.  Sustainability is a relatively new concept and thus the first experiment in commercial aquaponics will have to be designed very carefully.

 

Thanks for all the considered responses to date that is helping me shape that first attempt.

[Green Acre Aquaponics]

Chi really had an incredible point with the key to sales success and marketing being convincing people that you have something they need as opposed to something they want.  Wants are easily dismissed with frugality, whereas needs can supercede economics.  So is the essential ingredient to marketing aquaponics for home backyard systems or the produce procured in a commercial venture convincing the buyer of a want or a need? That depends. 

 

For the backyard system purveyor, their agenda lives on the want side, especially with a huge populous that prefers the convenience and somewhat unfortunate realistic necessity of the grocery store.   It is too easy for some of us that have the desire, ability and know how to grow our own food to want to categorize those that prefer the grocery store convenience in some kind of lazy, listless category.  But really when one considers the dynamic of the modern household, whether it is single parents or working parents or even just working people in general, many simply don't have the time cultivate their own food.  Despite the ease of an aquaponic system once established, there is still a level of time investment required that ultimately can be better spent by someone that has to go to the grocery store for non food essentials anyway. 

 

However, when we consider the commercial aquaponics grower, can we not categorize their product on the 'need' side of the spectrum?  Food is absolutley an undeniable basic need, although organic food lives unfortunately mostly on the want side for those aware of organic food benefits and of the pitfalls of food conventially grown.  (That is a whole other discussion and marketing agenda; educating the consumer of the organic benefits) So, really the question now is for the aquaponic grower marketer, how can one utilize and essentially exploit this need for food to the grower's benefit?   Now the word exploit immediately brings up negative connotations, but really that is what a good salesperson does.  They exploit the target's need to the point that said target now believes they cannot live without what it is they are selling.  Well, with food, that is legitamately true.   Organic distributors are starved for local organic growers; there is absolutely a market and a demand.  Perhaps the exception to this may be California where there is a mass amount of organic growers, so the local demand there is already met.  In light of this however, we have now identified that there is definitely a need.   

So, where it is I am going with this in relation to the marketing question that originated this discussion, is ultimately how do we market aquaponically grown food?  Is that even necessary?  Or the simple fact that there already exists a demand and a need, all one has to do is to sytematically, efficiently and cost productively create the product.  Can aquaponics satisfy those requirements?  Some have already answered that question with a resounding yes.  But why aquaponics? What made them choose it as the means to produce food? Perhaps it is because it simply boasts many benefits over conventional agriculture, whether it is enviromental, productivity, or the inherent organic factor. 

Ultimately, I completely believe in the promise of aquaponics and it being much more than a curiosity or fad.   Perhaps I am just an eternal optimist and fail to see the so-called downside or challenge of commercial aquaponics.  Instead I not only believe it is viable, but that there is the potential for a whole new industry  centered around aquaponic commercial farms that would allow for multiple small scale commercial farms that could supply a localized distribution hub.  The hub would provide cold storage, distribution and ahh, we come full circle, the all important marketing for the product.  A similiar model is already in place in North Carolina but does not cater to aquaponic growers, but conventional small farms.  Why then wouldn't this same approach work for aquaponics?    However, as Kobus said, it is incorrect to use one's own experience as a standard, but in such uncharted territory where there is yet not a standard, why not create one? 

 

[TCLynx]

I've often looked at the water features (fountains or ornamental fish ponds) in front of hotels or restaurants and thought they could be using that energy to be growing gourmet herbs and stuff instead of just wasting the nutrients doing water changes and such.

[Kobus Jooste]

Nate, what kind of "oldies do you have?  In South Africa, most of the older stuff is of European or UK origin.  My brother in Law has a functional Martini Henry.  You can literally see the bullet travel out of that one - old and slow but what an enormous calibler! The .244 is anything but slow - part of the problem my grandfather had.  With the wrong ammunition (typically too heavy bullet) it shot all over the place, but with the right bullet weight and charge, it goes at around 3000 fps

[Kobus Jooste]

Another aspect that I have not explored totally, but have noticed a possibility for, is to have typical water feature type ponds with attached plant beds in stead of trying to get people to eat the fish if they do not want to.

[Eric Warwick]

There are people who do that with aquaponics. They scare people and haven't updated there site in a long time. (they also are republicans, proven if you follow their twitter. Found them about the time I herd of aquaponics.http://www.aquaponicsusa.com/Aquaponics_-_Aquaponics_America_-_Aqua...

[Nate Storey]

You're right Kobus- and things are changing.  The trick will be thinking outside of a conversion mentality.  There will always be two camps- the doers (tending, planting, growing. . .slow food) and those who would rather just go to the store.  The trick will not be converting one to the other (some will convert, but many simply can't), the trick will be narrowing the gap between the two until the two camps overlap.  That's where my design is taking me, and that's where I think the future lies. . .

 

I appreciate the example of your .244.  I own a number of "obsolete" rifles that have never failed to do their job.  They may not be hot and fast, but no one's ever volunteered to play catch with them.

[Kobus Jooste]

the deserts are there but the beaurocrats do not know what to call them, but know how to manipulate them.  Those are the places were the people live under the breadline (50% of the area in which I live) and where the politicians go to to hand out food parcels and make promises in the year before an election.  Typically the areas are semi-formal to informal in settlement type, could have power and water but may not.  There has been a number of efforts to identify sites to start developing training centres, and I was approached to build 5 of these before the Metro realized they blew too much money on the world cup and cancelled all non-essential spending.  I have sent the project proposal to a social scientist friend of mine, who then forwarded it to a contact of his in the US.  The man (University Prof) will get back to us soon to tell us if the faculty will run the project formally as a student project.  The idea is that we link up with them to source funding and implement the project.  Holding thumbs.

 

In the middle class settings, we can walk to our amenities.  I grew up in a suburb where you did not have to leave it for anything.  Pre-primary, primary, high school and university plus most convenience stores within walking distance

[TCLynx]

Is there much of a concept of "food deserts" there.  Basically places in the urban centers where there are people living but no good sources of fresh food.  That is where Will Allen Targeted with growing power, basically an area with large low income housing but no grocery store in walking distance.

[Kobus Jooste]

There is very definitely a market for home units, but the market is small.  In larger community options the groups such as churches and trade unions are quite worth a bash, as is foreign aid money for that matter.  I'm trying to get a small unit at a wellness centre which would act as a add among the rich, health concious crowd.  The second project I will motiivate for is a sustainability centre to train and to educate people, but also to test the type of developmental model people in the US are using to grow commercial ventures - start small with a few niche customers that you grow to order for.  The nation is however, to a large degree not tuned to food quality concerns at this point in time so it is with the wider "NEEDING" that work is needed.