Founded in 1940 to save America’s farms and ranches, American Farmland Trust (AFT) recognized it reached an inflection point with aging donors, a shrinking industry and critical research finding that unsustainable development was consuming the nation’s most fertile lands at an unsustainable pace.

Out of the Blue conducted a deep dive into AFT’s current marketing strategy to find that Millennials were not yet an engagement priority. Inspired by the 40-year-old tagline “No Farms. No Food.“ and AFT’s positioning evolution, we developed a strategic plan to refine and redirect AFT messaging, marketing programs and assets——leading with straight talk about farming as both a climate challenge and a solution.

We won buy-in to update AFT’s tagline to “No Farms. No Food. No Future.” on the website homepage, and provided a comprehensive call-to-action plan for support AFT’s industry-first and nature-based solutions.

To reach millennials, Out of the Blue’s plan included a multichannel digital marketing and PR rollout that would leverage key timing, from nationwide electoral primaries, to upgrading AFT’s “Free Range Conversations” to a shareable video series, to reframing the farm-to-table food movement through a high profile, young celebrity chef entertainment event series, “One Million Forks,” to solidify this critical generation’s commitment to farmland conservation.