The Agrodealer “Model” we used for the majority of the campaign

MbeguChoice: Farmer Awareness Case Study

Mykal Kiruthi
Jul 23, 2017 · 3 min read

How do you get millions of farmers to change how they’ve done farming for generations?

Kenya has 5–6 million farmers who actively plant every season. At present (2017), Mbeguchoice is the only comprehensive source of crop variety information available to these farmers, their agro-dealers, their extension support workers, and their internet-connected family and friends.

Currently, farmers recycle crops — year in, year out. They also only practice a single crop option within their farms.

Our Challenge

Pics by Neil Palmer (CIAT)

The challenge was to change behavior of farmers, help them reduce the recycling of seeds, explore crop variety and buy certified seeds from agro dealers.

We also needed to encourage farmers to plant the right crops that are appropriate to for their geographical areas.

Our Idea

We developed a new tagline which was in line with the objective of simplifying the message. Our tagline was:

Mahali Poa Kupata Mbegu Poa

This translates to “The best place to get the best seed”.

This resonated with the target audience as it was simple and easy to understand. This key message was communicated throughout the campaign on various platforms through radio, on-ground activations and social media.

Marketing Strategy

The key objectives of the marketing strategy were as follows:

• Create awareness of MbeguChoice among the selected target groups.

• Motivate and persuade selected target groups to use MbeguChoice through a simple, clear value proposition and call to action.

• Educate the market on the connection between higher yields and the use of certified seeds.

• Position MbeguChoice as a comprehensive and easy to use source of seed information for farmers.

• Get the target audience to influence others into using MbeguChoice.

Activations

To see more on this, check out my Behance post here.

Social Media

The MbeguChoice social media objectives were broken down into three:

1. Increase the online presence for MbeguChoice through development of content and Facebook engagement.

2. Create top-of-mind awareness for MbeguChoice and in the long run, affect behavioral change among the target market.

3. Drive traffic to the MbeguChoice website and have people searching for seeds suitable to their respective regions or locations.

You can see more on my Behance page, linked above.

Campaign Results

The campaign was greatly successful — both in creating awareness of MbeguChoice and in encouraging behavioral change amongst farmers and listeners.

Research carried out after the first phase of the campaign revealed:

  1. 28% increase in the awareness of MbeguChoice as a source of information on certified seed.
  2. 24% of those interviewed heard about MbeguChoice from TV (Unpaid for PR Stories)
  3. 14% heard about MbeguChoice from a fellow farmer

The post-campaign report also revealed a general increase in knowledge about crop seed and the use of high quality seed, which we attribute to the MbeguChoice campaign:

  1. 89% of all communication heard was from radio
  2. 8% increase in those that believe they would get a higher yield if they planted certified crop seed
  3. More than 2 out 5 crop farmers recall communication via the radio on the benefits of modern crop varieties
  4. 88% of the sampled farmers who plant recycled seed have considered planting certified seed after hearing the MbeguChoice communication
  5. 3 out of 5 certified seed users who heard information on crop seed via radio have purchased a new crop seed variety
Mykal Kiruthi

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I'm on point like the end of this sentence. All tweets are fictional. Any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental.

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