Farmers will pay more to support Beef+Lamb NZ's meat promotions.
Basketballer Steven Adams is smashing steaks on American TV but Kiwi beef marketers have not yet approached him to promote New Zealand red meat.
The rangy star is pushing a generic message to eat beef, which New Zealand will benefit from, Beef+Lamb NZ market development manager Nick Beeby said.
The US is New Zealand's most lucrative beef market, taking $1.27 billion worth to the year ended March last year. A total of 44 per cent or about 190,000 tonnes of beef was sold to the US, compared with 20 per cent to the next highest value market, China.
Beef+Lamb NZ is gearing up to launch a new $4 million promotion campaign in California in the next two months called Taste Pure Nature, targeted at what it describes as "conscious foodies".
These are consumers who "look beyond price when buying meat and enjoy trying new styles, formats and origins. They are mindful about the environment and animal welfare and see these as inputs into quality, nutritious food," Beef+Lamb NZ's promotional material says.
"Opinion leaders will be part of our strategy but selecting the right ones that will get to our target audience - we still have to go down that route," Beeby said.
"We're doing more work at the moment into the target segment and to see what drives their buying decisions, what their lifestyles are, what information they use."
Beeby acknowledged that Adams's pitch was more to a "sporty, blokey" type of consumer than the "conscious consumer" his organisation was aiming at.
He agreed a campaign along the lines of "I'm Steven Adams and New Zealand beef has helped make me what I am today" would have a significant impact, but it also came down to who Beef+Lamb NZ could afford.
The Oklahoma Thunder centre has featured in a 30-second television commercial for the Oklahoma Beef Commission, extolling his love of red meat.
Adams tells the camera: "Mate, I eat beef all the time, I smash steaks all the bloody time, mate".
Last year the meat industry was blindsided by an Air New Zealand promotion for the meat-free Impossible Foods burger on selected flights from Los Angeles.
Chief executive at Beef+Lamb New Zealand, Rod Slater, said he challenged Air New Zealand to help promote local meat to the same extent
The national carrier produced a video extolling the virtues of the burger and paid for journalists to travel to Impossible Foods' headquarters.
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