Laying the groundwork
Everything started with forming a global team of specialists and have them collaborate in projects. Multilingual experienced veterinarians and doctors with specializations in genetics, nutrition formulation, target feed intake management, vaccination, hygiene programs, behavioral sciences and new management approaches such as cage free span the world and support all markets from east to west and from the northern to the southern hemisphere. Another aspect was to rely on the marketing knowledge already on board, the other to hire an absolute outsider as new communication strategist with a fresh view on things to the team in March 2020.[register]…and then starting over…
H&N International had always been there since 1945 as an active force in research, optimization and sales, we just did not communicate. Fair enough, but we needed to spread the word again and make people aware of our presence. So, to begin with, H&N International got itself a new website. It was not like we had to create heaven and earth from scratch in the beginning. Yet our old side had gotten somewhat out of fashion over time, and it was almost void of more engaging contents and digital opportunities. So, we took a deep courageous dive right into more creative ways of communicating.Take a close look
H&N International is offering the worlds’ most market-adaptive layer breeds. Although this genetic capability really is H&N Internationals’ unparalleled USP in the poultry industry, adaptiveness is a somewhat spongy concept. It’s hard to understand the true meaning and the innate power in it.How to look at what you cannot see
Adaptability itself is only visible indirectly in the results achieved and the return on investment gained. “Great layers multiply money. They turn any feed into four times the value in egg mass”, explains Dr. David Cavero, mastermind behind all H&N International breeds. “If results aren’t monitored against investments, they remain unseen and therefore often unbelieved.” So, how to explain the unique selling proposition of adaptability? How to visualize the invisible?
Just be yourself
Being yourself means to be authentic. Being authentic ads to be credible and trustworthy. H&N International is adaptable, too! We adapt to what our customers need – just like our birds. And we see and embrace the great chance in catering to calibration.Laying the groundwork
A one-size-fits-all-approach simply cannot satisfy individual needs, and it is also not respecting individual requirements. Anyone having grown up on a farm or making a living out of agriculture knows that it means to be carefully driving a microcosmos every day. We adapt to these many microcosmoses, which means that we are able and absolutely willing to see beyond and look inside, eager to learn and keen to support! Adaptable can also mean versatile, flexible “an attitude of plasticity, elasticity and agility in what we do” says Arbe. “Of course, we have a very solid and thought-through marketing strategy across various media channels, but the backbone of it is really this engaged, agile state of mind of ours.”Overview of current marketing materials, channels and collateral
The company Website was completely made over with a new design and a new content structure. The Chickipedia – inspired by Wikipedia, The Chickipedia offers quick access to key words and topics in particular if you don’t have the time to leaf through a brochure or folder. Access is tiered due to business interest. READ MORE
The Campus – four virtual rooms make learning and scientific exchange faster, easier and more fun. All materials related to events can be found in the adjacent library after the respective event could be accessed in the Auditorium. The Calendar of Activities is a blackboard announcing future offers, and the Science Hub is a get-together platform that also holds scientific images and more. READ MORE
Interactive digital museum as part of the company section – experience H&N Internationals’ path from founding till today and travel along a timeline or leaf through Art and Mary Heisdorfs’ very own scrapbook and see how they documented their way from Wisconsin to the world market. It is exciting to look at the pages and see how visionary the Heisdorfs had been already early on. Many marketing ideas they had are still applicable today and can still inspire. And their personal news archive of articles and publications gives an insight into how persistantly and successfully they grew the brand step by step. READ MORE
The Download – Section of the Website offers numerous novelties as well: Each breed comes with a comprehensive Management Guide of its own now. The Technical Tipps have been enhanced by “Light Management Part I”, “Light Management Part II”, “Males Management” and “Cage-Free versions & Feeding Management” all in different languages. New Layer Leaflets and new Parent Stock leaflets with new bird images and in more languages are also available. READ MORE
Never miss a thing – Staying up-to-date and looking into previous news and the company magazine “Facts that Figure” – all can be done in the Newsroom. Weekly announcements on H&N International LinkedIn also link to the respective article or subsite as well. READ MORE
The new VIP-Room – Welcomes customers with a couple of new special functions. “Here, our customers find things that are not for everybody but exclusively made for them”, explains Arbe. Free customizable marketing material helps customers to do their own marketing at no cost and effort at all. It comes customized in various languages and country modifications already, and it can be adapted even further to special needs of a customer hupon request to the marketing department. Need another language? Want a different claim? A completely different motive we don’t offer just yet? Please talk to us, we’re happy to support your ideas. READ MORE
Classic Media Relations
Media relations with the key trade media “Asian Agribiz” and a following remarketing campaign of the advertisement motive was a must-have to create a bang and inform target markets that H&N International is back to where it had been before – and stronger than ever.
“And it paid off already, we won new customers and won back a couple of old ones as well”, says Arbe. The unusual nano-perspective of the eggshell campaign and the short movie that is not like any other company movie in the industry also garnered global media interest. This media interest can – and should – be continued also by our customers and proliferate onwards into local media.“Customers can basically tell their own great story about the shell strength of their product by using the film and the supporting material without needing to invest and create a campaign of their own.”
Events
The H&N International Events require a chapter of their own. “We have done many! We harnessed the global situation and reached out to more people than ever before!”, says Arbe. It all started last autumn with a triple event squeezed into the week from 5th to 8th October 2020. Starting with the Campus and following on with the Layer Academy in 3 different time zones and last but not least the H&N Distributor Meeting, all these had some 450 participants attending in total. Several last-minute issues challenged the event-week: “We had to find a new technical crew after people of the original team had tested positive for Covid19 and were banned from travelling. Zoom as meeting platform, too, was more than once instable”, recalls Arbe. The Launch of the new Parent Stock Guides on 30th March 2021, with 75 participants and the H&N LAYER ACADEMY FOR ASIA & LATIN AMERICA from 11th – 12th May 2021 with a total of almost 500 participants where life-streamed. We introduce the mutual interaction polls or life-questions “The feedback we had was overwhelmingly positive and encouraging”, says Arbe. Also trade fairs remain a point of touch for H&N International. The World Poultry Virtual Congress (WPVC) by HIPRA from 14th – 17th June 2021 saw the first virtual booth of the brand and was enriched by two speeches by Dr. Fernando Carrasquer in the convention center. “It may seem a bit odd at first to attend a trade fair as an avatar”, smiles Saskia, “yet the way to get in touch, exchange business cards or agree on personal face time is much the same – when there is an interest to get in touch you get in touch. We also saw that visitors of our booth had vivid interests in proceeding to our website and watch the movie or check out more materials. Digital formats enable that transit much faster than usual.” Layer Academy Russia, 15th September 2021, and North America, 21st and 22nd September 2021: A total of some 500 registrants for both Russia and North America Layer Academies resulted in two highly interactive and informative events. This time hosts from customer companies led through the presentations. Each presentation was followed by real-time interaction with questions and answers and a couple of polls. All presentations got recorded and can be accessed again on our Campus (link to Layer Academy). Here, also answers to all questions asked throughout both events can be found. “We are very happy to be able and attract so many registrants”, says Xabier Arbe, Managing Director of H&N International. “Also the quality, indepth interest and sheer amount of questions we received from the participants clearly shows what people expect from modern genetic. And we are happy to offer that and deliver on targets!”Ready-to-use campaigns – locally customized
Another vivid example for adaptiveness in marketing is the current global campaign to communicate that H&N International breeds offer the industries’ best eggshell strength. The campaign consists of a short movie, posters and banners in currently eight languages. And we have more to come! The posters can be localized with country colors and customer logos upon request. But they are not just posters, they hold the QR-code to the movie titled “The oval eggspediton” about shell strength, so customers can directly market their layers and their eggs with it and profit from this involvement. The campaign has been launched with a respective advertisement motive that, too, can be re-used by customers to communicate their own offer. Remarketing this motive in key markets, too, aids the awareness of H&N Internationals shells strength campaign. A media press kit with background information and a look behind the scenes of the movie is available as well. It’s a genuine pret-a-porter campaign available in the VIP-room at no marketing cost at all for customers!”Encapsulated knowledge and troubleshooting with a smile
H&N Internationals multi-lingual global team of experts became yet more diverse in “hiring” the avatar Nick Rooster. Our very own “deteggtive” solves cases and helps customers do their own trouble shooting with a smile. Nick Rooster presents a genuine interactive training opportunity to benefit from different perspectives, because the multiple-choice questions are drawn from real-life-situations. It’s important to look behind issues and find the path to the correct solutions. The Nick Rooster-Cases aren’t all that easy to solve, even experienced people may have to start over again until the find the correct way to solve a case. READ MORE Videocapsules, too, condense complex information and show an easy path to solutions. The benefit of starting ones’ own hatchery or solving fatty liver induced mortality fast and efficiently is shown in brief. The videocapsules stick to a comic style, thus laying focus on the topic itsself, necessary process steps and aspects introduced. In complex matters especially it can sometimes be hard to see the main aspects and to carve them out of deductions. Therefore, the videocapsules are a way to transport pros and cons, opportunities and considerations fast and in an easy way – like a capsule of knowledge you can simply swallow. READ MOREOutlook
New engagement and learning formats will follow, also a loyalty program for parent stock customers has already been launched, enabling members to pile up “Nick Coins” fast and turn them into other items of value. Nutrition and data collection are two big topics in future with exciting campaigns and new tools ahead. But we don’t want to give too much away yet, because many of our upcoming marketing tools are really designed to be a nice surprise. H&N also continues the more traditional paths, of course, and is very happy to support customers in their local marketing efforts, so the awareness about adaptability proliferates onwards to their customers as well.
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