It's more than the plant More than 150 people gathered on a Monday afternoon at this year's OFA Short Course to attend the first Short Course Town Meeting. The topic of the open forum discussion was "It's the Plant, Stupid!" The premise of the meeting was to discuss the value of plants, including what impact mass merchandisers have had on the price of plants and whether it's possible to receive more money for a higher-quality product. A panel of industry members representing production and marketing companies was assembled to provide opinions on the ways plants are marketed. As the attendees quickly found out, marketing has a lot more to do with than just growing and delivering a quality plant. The grower production mentality of "that's the way we've always done it" is dead, and based on comments that were made, most audience members realize this. It was quickly agreed that a plant has to look good to the consumer for it to have any chance of selling. While some consumers might consider it a bargain to pay a few cents less for day-old bakery goods or overripe bananas, trying to sell a poor-quality plant doesn't benefit anyone. Consumers certainly aren't going to be encouraged to buy from a display of poor-quality plants. There will always be consumers willing to accept the challenge of trying to nurse a plant back to health. But most consumers are going to walk right past poor-looking plants. Whether the plants are sold at Home Depot, Wal-Mart or an independent garden center, the consumer has certain expectations about how our product is supposed to look and perform. Connecting with consumers As one medium-size grower on the panel pointed out, our industry has learned how to grow plants much faster than we've learned how to market them. Unfortunately, this trend continues. Several panel members said our product is tremendously under-marketed; many of the town meeting attendees voiced their agreement. One speaker at this year's Seeley Conference, which focused on understanding the consumer, asked if we as an industry are really listening to the consumer. We have not transitioned our product to keep up with changes in consumer lifestyles. This speaker said we have disconnected from the consumer. Unlike other industries, she said, we have not made it any easier for people to garden by having plant names that are too difficult to pronounce, not putting enough information on plant care tags, selling plants by container size and doing a lot of unnatural things to natural products. Another Seeley Conference speaker said that we should look to other industries for examples of successful marketing. Perfume manufacturers and diamond mining/marketing company De Beers have successfully transitioned their products from being seen as strictly for the wealthy to something that can be a part of the common experience -- affordable luxuries for the masses. As the speaker said, we have to give consumers a narrative about our products. There are great opportunities to enhance the value of our product. We have to add value if we want to push up the price of our product. Send this article to a friend Enter your e-mail address: Enter your friend's e-mail address: Click the image below to send: © 2004 Branch-Smith Publishing