NewLeaf Symbiotics strives to stand out from the crowd
That’s exactly what Nicole Phillips at NewLeaf Symbiotics wanted to avoid. As a biological start up in a broad agriculture category, there’s some level of differentiation from the conventional products already, but NewLeaf has leaned into that differentiation and widened the gap.
“For us, the first thing to do was look at how do we stand out,” Phillips says. “In agriculture, especially, there’s just such a sea of sameness, and everybody’s talking to the growers at the same time of the season, making very similar claims. Everybody’s talking about yield, how they’re going to help growers get more. ‘Here’s how we’re going to help you get more with less. If you use our product, it’s going to enhance your yield. You’re going to get this many extra bushels per acre.’ Grower testimonials are everywhere. It’s constant, and everybody’s turning on at the exact same time. With a cyclical season, it’s hard to avoid the rise and fall of the market.”
One of the stats that has been influencing the marketing at NewLeaf is around content consumption. The average consumer is looking at and engaging with more content than ever and growers even more so. Except they aren’t only consuming content; they’re also talking to each other and listening to dealers, reps and agronomists. It can be overwhelming. So, how does a biological company, a small part of a large category, stand out? Well, it does help that the product is pink.
“Our marketing is really about leaning into who and what we are,” Phillips says. “We’re different. We don’t look like everybody else. And instead of trying to make us fit in, be more ‘traditional ag’ and look more ‘ag’ with green shades and blue skies, we embrace our pink. Our tech is pink. Many said the category wouldn’t accept pink, but it sure stands out. And like it or not, growers stop and talk to us at events, and it has stopping power on the scroll and on the page. So, from a marketing perspective, we really use that power to break through.”
It’s not just the pink tech that’s different. After more than 11 years perfecting their science, NewLeaf has performance and efficacy data to back up their lineup of biological products.
“At trade and farm shows, it might be the pink that stops them, the gummy worms, the hat or the pink bag,” Phillips says. “But it’s the efficacy data that keeps them and ideally encourages them to give some trial space to our technology, including our revolutionary new EPA-registered bioinsecticide for corn rootworm. And hopefully they keep checking in for progress on our technology pipeline, which includes our nitrogen use efficiency and methane mitigation efforts. These relationships all start with data. Our years of field trials on both small and large plots that we did. That’s what makes us different, what makes us special. It’s not just the type of technology, but it’s the fact that we did that hard work so that the grower doesn’t have to.”
All the data and stopping power in the world won’t get a brand far without the right audience, which is what NewLeaf has found in partnering with Farm Journal. As Phillips and her team were looking at building a brand from the ground up, Farm Journal Vice President of Sales, Crops Division Tyler Smith was one of the first people she called to look at the Farm Journal portfolio that Phillips could leverage with her budget.
“I was looking at how we could get the most eyeballs, make the biggest impact and create forward trajectory for a small brand that’s just getting off the ground,” Phillips says. “And what didn’t already exist, we needed to go make. That’s where Brian Conrady and the Farm Journal production team got involved. I’ve had the good fortune of working with Brian and his team in the past to make something out of thin air and create a platform that allows a story to be told that doesn’t necessarily fit in one of the portfolio pieces.”
Early in 2024, NewLeaf started with Top Producer Summit to get in front of those larger operations and other folks within the industry who hadn’t heard of NewLeaf before to get on the radar. After many great conversations and introductions, a successful event promotion package and “Night Out” sponsorship, the impact was obvious. It could have been because of the anecdotal evidence, but it also could have been the 6,567% growth in their landing page views during that week or the exponential growth in their social media presence.
“After the success at Top Producer, we took a bold move and jumped into Crop Tour later in 2024,” Phillips says. “It was a big investment for an organization of our size, but being on stage with well-known agriculture names like Pioneer and BASF paid huge dividends in terms of our brand stature. The access to the scouts and Farm Journal reporters like Andrew McCrea, Tyne Morgan and Chip Flory was immeasurable. Farm Journal gave us that opportunity and helped us cultivate our brand to get to that point.”
The presence at these experiential, in-person platforms and across different media has given NewLeaf the opportunity to physically demonstrate the impact of its technology, which has been another impactful piece of its marketing in 2024.
“Participating in Farm Journal events has allowed us to visually show the roots and the difference of what our Pink-Pigmented Facultative Methylotrophs (PPFMs) technology is doing,” Phillips says. “When you’ve got that visual evidence, it’s hard to deny the impact of the technology. We have a special display that we bring with our roots comparing grower standard practice and roots treated with our PPFM technology. And now our product is becoming a grower standard practice for many well-known yield champion, award-winning growers. To me, that says something. Farmers are hard to convince. They don’t believe advertising from companies just because we say it’s true. You’ve got to show them. It’s demonstration that makes a difference.”
With her own roots in ad agencies across many industries, Phillips is uniquely qualified to notice changes in the agency-company-media dynamics.
“I’m an agency brat, so prior to going client side, I worked at about 13 ad agencies,” Phillips says. “The era of the traditional agency-client-media model, where everything’s in these neat little silos, has ended. I look at Farm Journal as a key creative partner, not just a media partner, but a key creative media multichannel lifestyle brand. When I want to connect with a grower or the ag industry, Farm Journal is an outlet that lets me do that while telling a creative story. From a partnership standpoint, Farm Journal is top in my book.”
As NewLeaf goes into 2025, they are continuing the partnership with Farm Journal as they continue to build their brand. That’s Phillips’ advice to anyone else in the ag industry.
“Our technology is a symbiont, and as a company, we’re a symbiont,” Phillips says. “We partner with other technologies and ag companies. That’s where we’ve been successful with Farm Journal. We can’t do everything by ourselves, and we don’t want to. Partnership makes it all the better. Whether you’re talking technology or marketing, good things come when you work together.”
