How Land O’Lakes is Challenging Rural Stereotypes in Marketing

Rural is not a monolith. We like to say if you've been to one rural community, you've been to one rural community. It is much more nuanced. It's much more diverse in terms of industry, in terms of culture, in terms of people. And when you talk to rural Americans, a lot of times this isn't necessarily about where they are, but it's about their mindset, right? So rural is as much a mindset as a place. Welcome to Time for Reset, the marketing podcast that gets behind the thinking of the industry's sharpest leaders and shaping the world's most iconic brands. We ask the big questions, what does it take to drive real change? How do you stay ahead when the rules keep evolving? From shifting consumer expectations to marketing seat in the boardroom, every episode dives into what's working, what's not, and what's next. Expect smart conversations, real world insights, and a bold perspective on modern marketing leadership. Let's hit Reset and turn strategy into action. Now into the conversation. Welcome to Time for a Reset, the podcast where we sit down with marketing leaders from some of the world's most beloved brands to uncover how they're driving change in today's fast evolving world. Today we're joined by Mickey Nelson, director, Brand Strategy and insights for Land O' Lakes Incorporated. Mickey has deep experience across cpg, agriculture, retail and technology. He currently leads brand strategy, insights and analytics team at Land o' Lakes, where he builds and scales research, strategy and analytics capabilities to drive growth across the organization's house of brands, including Dairy Foods and Purina. Before joining Land o', Lakes, Mickey spent nearly a decade in agency roles in Minneapolis and San Francisco, most recently as strategy director at Space150. There he worked with clients like Lululemon, 3M, Nike, US bank, and Cargill, developing brand and communication strategies, digital content and cultural insights. So, Mickey, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and I'm very interested if you can tell us what would you hit Reset on in the marketing industry today. Yeah, awesome. Thanks for having me. So I want to reset how marketing thinks about and portrays rural America. I think because for too long our industry has missed the mark. We've really relied on outdated tropes instead of reflecting the richness and fullness of rural life. And I think as marketers, we're not just here to be observers. We can really change the narrative, we can shift perception and we can really build these authentic connections that cross cultural divides. And I think ultimately this is about strengthening the communities we all depend on. I love that I love that. I have done a lot of work in the space of community and Persona building in my career. And you mentioned specifically that marketing has historically relied on outdated tropes when they're portraying rural America. I'm curious, what are some of the most common misconceptions that you see today? So maybe I should start by saying Land O Lakes is one of the largest farmer owned cooperatives in the United States. Most people think of us as, you know, your favorite butter and cheese brand, but we're really much more than that. And I think that positions us to be really different in the marketplace. That means we're working with farmers, we're talking with folks in rural communities on a daily basis. We really try to get to know them and understand them at a really intimate level. And I think what we've seen is whether that's in research or whether that's talking to people in rural Americas, there's this big gap between their lived experiences and what shows up in marketing, tv, film, media and broader culture. What we see is this in terms of the tropes is I think rural America is caught between either being overly romanticized or overly simplified. When people think about rural America, they kind of think of, well, if it's not urban, it's rural. And that's actually not the case. Rural is not a monolith. We like to say if you've been to one rural community, you've been to one rural community. It is much more nuanced, it's much more diverse in terms of industry, in terms of culture, in terms of people. And when you talk to rural Americans, a lot of times this isn't necessarily about where they are, but it's about their mindset. Right? So rural is as much a mindset as a place. I think if we looked at visuals, film, a lot of times these communities are flattened, right? So I think people rely on visual shorthand. The red barn, the beautiful landscape, tractors, weathered dudes and denim. I think largely this has been a culture that has been flattened and overly simplified. And I think the last one is really about the narrative of rural America. So most of things that you hear about rural America, and maybe this is changing a little bit, but is a narrative that's based on what is absent versus what's abundant. So you see that rusted infrastructure or you see aging populations, we talk about economic stagnation. And that narrative really perpetuates the stereotypes. It really creates a perception about rural America that doesn't always equate to how people experience that who actually live there. So what our research really made clear is that rural America isn't just one story. It's not just the cowboy star story or western story. It's not just the Midwest farm story. It's not just a Deep south story. It's really a ton of diverse, multi generational, increasingly multicultural, and really a deeply modern and innovative place. And that story doesn't always come through when we look at pop culture, when we look at film, when we look at marketing especially. And so probably a more accurate portrayal really shows rural people and places as much more vibrant, much more diverse, connected. These aren't just symbols and stereotypes. You think about that red barn or that weathered old white guy. This is a place of modern innovation. And it's not just about landscape as an industry. This is our opportunity to really tell stories about entrepreneurship, about the care and connection that happens in these communities that really kind of grounds us as land o lakes and how we want to portray them. You offered so many interesting things that I'd love to unpack further. And I find what you say really relevant because I n of one, I grew up in a very urban environment in Northeast Ohio, and about halfway through my adolescence, we moved to a very rural environment. And I think your comments about the flattening of the community in terms of their portrayal, I've witnessed it happen. I wonder what do you think is at one or maybe multiple risks that brands face when they flatten their consumer and put them into maybe less diverse constructs. And how are you with Atlanta Lake mitigating that risk? Yeah, it's a great question. I think rural is not the only audience that gets flattened. Right. I think we've all gotten those Persona sheets that really feel one dimensional. But I think the opportunity is when we can get at the nuance, if we can get at more of that richness in the audience, that makes ideas sharper, that makes our competitive edge sharper, that makes the stories we tell that much more resonant and relevant. But that doesn't come without a insight. That doesn't come without doing the work and really trying to understand your target or your audience or however way you want to talk about it. If we don't do the understanding, it makes the work that much harder. Right. Are you and your team from an insights perspective, are you doing anything maybe different than you've done in the past or maybe novel to how other groups are thinking about activating insights and ideas? And I wonder if there is a specific initiative or example you can share that just kind of illustrates how you and or your team are actively reshaping narratives through the insight work that you talked about previously? Yeah, absolutely. So, as I mentioned, I think Land O Lake sits at this really unique intersection of agriculture, of rural, as well as our really storied and legacy brands that we have. And that positions us to really think about and challenge how rural America shows up. So I think about one, just our proximity to the audience. I can call someone on the team who lives in rural America and bounce idea off. I can be in a place that I don't know that every industry as it relates to rural America is able to do, but I think it helps our teams and pushes our teams to center our member, our farmer members, our retail members, being a co op that we represent. And it really changes what we value and authenticity, transparency, all of those things are just so much more important when you're part of a co op. One thing we're really focused on right now is this modern rural collective. So we launched the Modern World Collective, I think, in earnest, last year. And it's really about convening brands, marketers, storytellers, culture shapers to change the narrative around rural America using the insight, not just stereotypes. So modern Rural collective is working across film, across brands, across tv, music industries to really kind of reshape how people think about rural America and really kind of position rural America as a place for talent, of solutions, of inspiration. And I think it's really grounded in a lot of foundational insights that our team has developed over the last three, four years, bringing that together with people who can actually, actually shape culture, whether that be a brand, whether that be an artist or a film studio, for example, really doing strategy that's around that narrative change that I think is fairly unique. I love that. I haven't heard of a brand doing anything quite exactly like that, and I think it's really commendable. Do you think that your time previously on the agency side has shaped your perspective and how you are developing these cultural narratives for Land o' Lakes? Yeah, I think as a brand strategist, you're always interested in culture and subcultures. You want to bring out that richness in people and in audiences. Especially to your earlier question, I think really especially as we think about the gap between perception and reality, I think that's really where the strategist in me really gets excited. And it's a brief that you would love to get right. To reframe the narrative of rural America is just such a huge opportunity and such an interesting challenge. So I think about my Background, whether you're kind of understanding the run clubs in Los Angeles, whether it's about getting in on book talk, whether it's trying to launch a sneaker in the five boroughs of New York, and each of them is different, you try to bring out that nuance, you try to bring out that depth in the experience of that audience so you can connect, you can resonate, and you become that much more relevant to your audience. So when I joined Land O Lakes, we started exploring this data, which I think is a really, I'm really grateful for the opportunity to dig in and you start to get closer to these communities because I'm like you, I'm a city kid. My grandparents lived in rural America and we would go and you kind of visit and you see that. But until you start really working in it day to day, you can't grasp this, what is a stereotype, what isn't. And you see this big gap between what they live and what's being portrayed. And so I think it was an opportunity for us to do the deeper work and we were able to get into what it was, the opportunity to activate on this, both from kind of a impact of what our brand can do, but also again, going back to our former members who we serve. How do we use brand and storytelling? I wonder, as you think about lived experience, but then also insights and insights is really being transformed in a significant way with AI, artificial intelligence, and as well some advanced data tools. How can data and AI, in your opinion, help marketers better understand and represent underrepresented or misunderstood communities if they don't have the opportunity to have those lived experience examples like you and I. What's funny is that I asked ChatGPT to draw a picture of a farmer. And it's so funny, if you do that right now, what you're going to get as a white guy in overalls in front of a big red barn. And so I think there are opportunities to maybe check AI in some places. One of the aims of this work with mrc, with our work with Getty, is about creating the apparatus or the infrastructure to change that in the future. So that one, we're changing the content, we're changing the data, we're changing the narrative that feeds AI, at the same time changing the perception of rural America more broadly so that when people see that in their Gemini or whatever, they're able to say, yeah, that doesn't make sense, correct it, and kind of recognize the differences and the opportunities to really showcase what we see in those models and in that Data much more differently. I love that. Feeding the machine more diverse. Feeding the machine. Yeah, exactly. Diverse perspectives. And the house that my parents bought when I was in my adolescence, it also has a barn. It is not red, but it has a barn. And my mother standing in front of that barn would not be synonymous with the depiction that AI or ChatGPT gave you. So ensuring that the representation, the fullness of rural America isn't flattened into that caricature, which is unfortunately where AI is at, I think, is a novel attempt that you guys are going after. When you think about the opportunity that you all have in terms of creating authentic stories and marketing campaigns that can scale, that can feed the machine, that can feed your current and prospective consumers, that can feed into the co op, how do you balance staying true, but also nuanced? How do you balance reflecting reality as it is today, but also leaning into the world in which you believe we either are at the precipice of living in, or you're very curious to live in? I think people feel like they have to make a choice between authenticity and scale, and I don't know that that's always the case. I'm biased because I'm a strategist. So I feel like our job is really about being clear about where nuance needs to live and where consistency matters. So I think authenticity starts upstream. We've invested heavily in insights, whether that be mindset research, whether that's qualitative listening, whether that's getting out in these communities and doing some cultural analysis. We ground our teams in that real human truth before we ever get to creative or before we ever get to the media plan. And that's where we can get to that richness, that nuance of an audience that may not be a step that others always take. Through the tools, through conversation, we're able to set some guardrails that really create a centering device for our teams, one that's grounded in shared values. We're outlining those clear tension points. We're developing the principles and the clarity around the problem and opportunity. And that gives teams the ability to scale because we're able to then be flexible in how we want to tell these different stories to different audiences without drifting into the stereotypes and cliches that I think when you start doing things big and you start doing things broad, we lose that richness. Yeah, I have my own experiences with doing things big and broad, and it can go awry. You're trying to deliver something at scale, but to diverse audiences. And sometimes there's like an Inside language being spoken that everyone in that audience doesn't understand. I would wonder when you're thinking about narratives, whether they be internal or external, but when you're trying to create internal change and evolution as a leader, how do you challenge internal assumptions or biases that may exist within the teams that you're working with, or even your partners at times have those assumptions or biases that you want to make sure are not it enfolded into that authentic representation that is the nucleus of the creative idea? Yeah, totally. I think for us, we're such a unique company in that our employee base is really diverse in terms of urban and rural. Like I said before, I work with folks who live in middle of nowhere, Kansas. Our agency teams might be in la. I think that gives us a really interesting place to start. And I think our teams are lucky that way. But when it comes to partners, to your point, whether that be an agency team or research partners, they don't always have that luxury. And so to me, some of the work that we do and need to do ongoing is about making those assumptions visible. So through this work, how we bring our teams and our agency teams together so we're not operating off the shortcuts and simplifications that can drown out the insight, but really focusing on what Rolex looks like, what it's for and what's going to work. And insight plays a critical role there. As much as we can, we want to connect folks to real voices. These are oftentimes just a connection with our members, whether it's a dairy member, whether it's one of our ag retailers, to get a better sense of that lived experience. And that's really a starting point so that folks aren't defaulting to that caricature like you said. Secondly, I think we really try to build those guardrails. We're really trying to build tools into this system. One learning we had from MRC early on is we had this big ambition to bring brands and companies together to change this narrative. But we found that we really needed to give folks tools. So through work with Getty and doing this, repicturing rural work, through working with Imagine Entertainment and developing some storytelling tools, really trying to amplify this work and give people the tools to do it themselves so that we can scale it in a way that's meaningful, we can create the cultural change we need. But it's got to be baked in. It can't just be you try to brief an agency or try to brief a partner one off, because I just don't know that all this pays off. Right, Right. I love what you were talking about in terms of addressing the challenge by incorporating real voices into the conversation. I think that really does help with the authenticity. And I love the work that you guys are doing on the additional guardrails and tools that you're empowering the team to. Have you mentioned Repicturing America work. Is that a specific initiative? Are there outcomes for that work? Can you talk a little bit more about what that is or help us create a picture in our mind for what Repicturing Rural America looks like? Yeah, absolutely. So we partner with Getty Images. One thing that has come through is the visual representation and the tools that marketers have don't always show the real world. So we partnered with Getty to really look at and use their visual GPS research to look at their vast library of images and understand where there are gaps in rural representation. This was the first of its kind research project with Getty, and it was really surprising what we found. Largely rural America is absent. I think only about 5% of their entire library was set in rural America. When we think about things like youth in rural America. So Gen Z teenagers, these folks were not shown with phones. They weren't with their friends. Largely, if you saw a young person in rural America, they were with their family or they were, like, sitting alone on a fence somewhere. Contrast this with urban imagery, which we know is largely groups of teens together. They're all on their phones. And it was just kind of startling when you see how different that is from real life. And so through that work, we identified these gaps with Getty. We built briefs with them to go out to graders and videographers to fill those gaps. So we focused on, one, diversity. Two, really thinking about that youth angle, how do we bring more young people into the fold? One other area was women at work. So largely through their visual collection, if you saw women, they weren't working, they were, like, sitting around or they're in the home. And I know from our members and also my grandparents, that women are the backbone of any rural community or the backbone of any farming operation. And so it was a really big opportunity to work with Getty and give again, marketers, these tools so that we have the visuals that match the reality. And it's been a really exciting partnership with Getty, and Getty's just been fantastic to work with. The benchmarks that we've blown through with them, I think are amazing. So we have this Repiction World collection we are distributing on unsplash, and then we have their istock work as well. So really, again, kind of expansive tools that marketers can lean into in addition to this research. So we have the research and then we have the images themselves. I love that. Congratulations on that work. I think it is commendable that one, you identified the gap, but two, you took action to resolve the issue that was impacting not just your brand, but so many brands downstream, because it wasn't authentically reflecting the lived experience of rural America. So I love that we've been talking a lot about culture, but looking ahead, a lot of marketers feel that cultural understanding is going to become a competitive advantage. It's not enough just to say, you know your consumer or you know your customer, but having a real deep cultural understanding of them. What broader shifts in marketing, whether that be technology or organizational or anything other, do you think will be most impactful to adjusting the narrative for businesses and consumers in the next three years? Looking forward, my hope would be that when you think about a rural community, we talked a little bit about this earlier, the value of community, this alternative view of success, and a deeper connection to your passions. I think that's really reflective of the values we see in young people today who are searching for that connection, who are searching for a different orientation to work, who are really looking for places where you can live out your passions in a different way. And I think rural starts to be this aspirational place that isn't a forgotten or flown over place, but really someplace that is inspiring to people who aren't just in rural America, but who are across the country. And I think that's a cultural shift that I hope to see where we are leaning into not just inspiration and aspiration in the urban and city setting, but really thinking broadly about what are the communities that we value, what is success, what does community look like and where do we find it. I think the other thing is we always talk about ourselves as a convener brand. And so in the pandemic, our CEO Beth Ford, really led a charge around closing the digital divide. And so that inspired our cmo, Heather Malenchek, to think about this modern world collective work and to bring together brands and organizations to solve a problem. I hope that more organizations take this strategy as a cue to come together and solve problems. I think there's one thing to collaborate and build equity together. I think there's another thing to collaborate and build impact together. And I would like to see more organizations think about being a convener, thinking about being more cooperative in their mindset. I love that how can you build impact? Do you think that that pertains to just brands? Or when you think about what's important for the next generation of senior marketers, what comes to mind to you in terms of what they should be focusing on? Do you also think they should be focusing on building impact, or are there other capabilities they should be developing? I like to think that marketing is more than just selling products. It can be about impact. But I'm not that idealistic that selling products doesn't matter. I do think thinking differently about ways that we can go to market, whether that be through narrative strategy, whether that be through culture shaping work and the cultural fluency you were talking about earlier is a skill that is certainly a need in marketing and I think a growing skill set that folks don't always have. How do you not just activate in culture, but work to change a narrative or shape culture are very different muscles. And I see a lot of brands activating in culture. I see fewer brands able to really change the narrative. And I think that's so important. As we think about AI, as we think about what's getting pulled into models and into data. If you need to change perception, it might look different in the future than it does today. Are there specific skills that you think marketers can develop to help them be better at culture shaping? Because I agree with you. I wonder though, what are some of the first or any steps that a marketer might take in order to like bolster their capabilities to be able to shape culture? I mean, it's a great question. I don't know if I have a perfect answer, but I would say through the work with mrc, we're focused on one, building those tools, right? How do you build the infrastructure for change? Two, how do you bring, whether it's Getty or whether it's Imagine Entertainment, whether it's our partners at UTA Heartland, how are you bringing together the right roster of talent to solve some of these issues? I think is super important. Knowing that one brand probably can't do it on its own. How do you create the collective, as it were? And then I think the third piece is, I think really being centered on what's true to you as an organization? I think purpose is one thing. I think that idea of authenticity might be different. And so how do we stay true in our case, how do we stay true to our members and the communities that they live in and what's important to them as a centering point and then build from there as opposed to a one off pulling something together that doesn't necessarily align with who you are in the organization. We have a tradition of asking all of our guests for the benefit of our listeners if they can demonstrate a little bit of vulnerability for a moment and share maybe one or more if you have top of mind the thing that you're working on yourself personally to improve so that you can be a better marketer. Yeah, that's a great question. So I don't know if this is being a manager or senior leader at an organization. I don't know if this is therapy, but I do find myself really focusing on identifying metacognition, right? Identifying the emotion I'm having in a moment before I act, any kind of interrogating that and taking that step because we live in a very anxious kind of fragile time. And so being in touch with what you're feeling and by versus reacting I think is something I've really been working on. I think every marketer could take bad advice and apply it. I love that you're recognizing the benefit of that. I love that you suggest other marketers connect with their feelings and use that as fuel to put them into a better headspace. So thank you so much, Mickey, for chatting with me today. I really enjoyed our conversation. I have a full page of notes forward and back that I took throughout our conversation and I think a lot of our listeners will appreciate. So thank you so much and have a great day. New Tool thanks thanks for listening to Time for a Reset. If you got something out of today's episode, share it with a colleague or drop us a review for more sharp thinking and practical tools to help you lead modern marketing. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, hit the reset button and get change over the line.