CASE STUDY

Pork Tour Inspires Bloggers

CLIENT: The National Pork Board

The Challenge

Ten bloggers are coming to dinner for three days.

The National Pork Board wants to showcase the people, places and things of “the other white meat” industry, serving both dishes and experiences that tell the story of how pork is produced.

Our Approach

We invited 10 bloggers to kick off the Pass the Pork tour in Iowa City, Iowa. Over Duroc tomahawk chops in apple barbecue sauce, the bloggers met leaders of the National Pork Board, National Pork Producers Council and Iowa Pork Producers Association as well as #RealPigFarming and were encouraged to discover the inside story of pork production.

The next day, we arranged for the group to tour Brenneman Pork, a family farm where the bloggers got to help deliver piglets into the world, dry them off and help them find milk. The group also learned about the corn that’s raised on the farm to feed the animals. Over a helping of pork burgers and ham balls in sauce, the farmers answered questions about raising pigs.

The tour moved into the kitchen on the final day. Bloggers made pulled pork lettuce wraps with drizzling sauce as they learned how to prepare different cuts of pork. Former “Bachelor” star and Iowa farmer Chris Soules made a surprise appearance.

The Results

The bloggers wrote 20 posts about their adventure. Coverage spanned across social channels, with 87 tweets, 16 Facebook posts and 79 Instagram posts, resulting in more than 7 million impressions.

By the end of the tour, bloggers felt a better understanding and more positive opinion of the pork industry. They shared their feedback about the experience:

“Everything that was planned was incredible, and connecting with all of the bloggers and people who did such a great job organizing the tour was a lot of fun.”