Of all the things I’ve heard over the years, few things have made me feel as good as when people have said to my wife and I that we’ve raised our children right, or when people said that to my parents about me.
How a person was raised is typically reflected in their goodness, and the same can be said about chickens, industry group Chicken Farmers of Canada (CFC) has learned.
CFC is highlighting that sentiment in its latest promotional campaign, “Raised Canadian. Raised Right.”
The creation of ‘Raised Canadian. Raised Right.’
JJ Hochrein, CFC director of brand marketing, said the organization did some research during the past fall that gave them insights on the mindsets of millennial and Generation Z consumers, as well as some minority groups.
“They consume the highest amount of chicken, but also have the highest negative sentiment on how chicken’s raised, and the farmer. A lot of that stems from misinformation that they may be reading online or through social media,” Hochrein said.
CFC not only wanted to get the farmers back into their marketing, but also give consumers accurate information regarding things such as the lack of use of added hormones, steroids or cages, as well as appropriate antibiotic use.
That led to the birth of “Raised Canadian. Raised Right.”
Chickens spread goodness through Toronto
To begin raising awareness and create video footage and still photography for the campaign, CFC had four people dressed up in friendly chicken outfits going through the streets of Toronto, with those chickens doing good things.
“So, if you’re raised right, you do good things,” Hochrein said. “You may hold the door for somebody, you may buy them a coffee, you may clean up garbage in a park, you may stop traffic for somebody walking across with a baby stroller, or you may give up your seat on the bus.”
And those four people in chicken suits did things just like that over the course of the week. But initially, CFC did not explain what they were doing to anyone.
“It was great. We weren’t telling people what it was all about. We started to build some buzz in the marketplace, and then we revealed what it was, so it was kind of fun,” he said.
Highlights from the good works done that week in Toronto, as well as people’s reactions to those good works, can be seen on a video that can be found on YouTube and other social media channels. At the end of the video, the message, “Raised by a Canadian Farmer” is displayed.
The reaction
While the campaign is still only about a month old, the reaction so far has been good. In fact, Hochrein said CFC is already “starting to see some kind of positive feedback in the marketplace.”
Photos and videos of the chickens showing how they have been raised right have been shared by others on social media, and the campaign itself has garnered the attention from magazines and other media outlets.
And, yes, there are those outside of Toronto that are curious if they will be seeing chickens demonstrating how they were raised right in a city near them.
“We’ve been asked that a few times. We would have loved to have done it in more major cities across the country. It really came down to budget and how much we could do, but it might be something we look at down the road,” Hochrein said.
