The campaign has been already presented to certified organic producers, and a presentation for the media took place earlier.
The aim of the campaign is to promote certified organic products. We want to explain to consumers what organic means, what are the benefits of organic products, and how to distinguish them on store shelves.
According to the study «Awareness and perception of organic products in Ukraine», conducted by MZ hub in late 2020, 78% of consumers in Ukraine are ready to buy organic products. But there is not enough information to help them choose organic.
The first phase of the promotion campaign started at the end of May online and already has more than 9 million views. The campaign includes videos, banners and a separate web page, where consumers can learn more about organic products.
«Producers have been asking to raise consumer awareness about organic products for a long time. It was obvious that consumers had to be additionally informed about the difference between organic and regular products, where to buy them and who produces such products. And these requests were received specifically from producers», — said Olena Korogod (Berezovska), president of the Organic Ukraine NGO at a press conference.
Two key ideas were chosen for the campaign: «Organic certified products have nothing to hide» and «Not everything that looks organic is organic». These two ideas reflect the moods and demands of consumers.
«In the EU, Switzerland, the United States and other countries, the state is involved in such promotion campaigns and most of them are organized at public expense. In the EU, for example, the recognition of the organic logo, «Euroleaf», is 56% — the highest among all labels used for food. The EU spent 10 years to achieve this and plans to continue investing in the logo’s promotion», — said Kateryna Shor, project manager at the Green Dossier Information Center and coordinator of the OrganicInfo.ua web portal.
In Ukraine, the campaign is organized thanks to «Organic Initiative», which brought together key players in the sector and found partners, with the support of the Swiss Confederation.
«Already this year, we plan to expand the campaign, involve more actively organic producers, opinion leaders and other projects, expand it to the selling points of organic products», — said Olena Deineko, coordinator of the Organic Initiative.
Download the post-release with a link to all the materials (Ukrainian only).
Reference:
Organic Initiative — is an initiative started in July 2020; the main goal is to increase sales of Ukrainian organic products with higher added value in domestic and foreign markets.
To achieve this goal, members of the organic private sector of Ukraine, activists from public organizations, leading consultants and service providers for organic producers have united.
The communication campaign is implemented with the support of Switzerland within the Swiss-Ukrainian Program “Higher Value Added Trade from the Organic and Dairy Sector in Ukraine” is funded by Switzerland and implemented by the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL, Switzerland) in partnership with SAFOSO AG (Switzerland), www.qftp.org.
The communication campaign is being implemented in partnership with the research agency MZ hub, the strategic consultant Cherniak Brand Consulting and the creative agency McCann KYIV.
Members of «Organic Initiative»:
- Olena Korogod (Berezovska) – Organic Ukraine NGO
- Serhiy Galashevskyy – Director of the certification body «Organic Standard» LLC
- Olena Deineko – Director of «Organic Business School»
- Oleksiy Kachkovskyi – Director of the scientific and production association “Institute of Organic Production”
- Mariia Makhnovets – Chairman of the public union “Ukrainian Organic Cluster”
- Oleksandr Prykhodko – Agricultural Market Development Manager, USAID Agricultural and Rural Development Program (AGRO)
- Natalia Prokopchuk – Coordinator of the organic component of the Swiss-Ukrainian program «Development of higher value-added trade in the organic and dairy sectors in Ukraine»
- Kateryna Shor – Project Manager of the International Charitable Organization, Information Center «Green Dossier»; Coordinator of the web portal OrganicInfo.ua
- Natalia Cholovska – President of the Lviv City Public Organization (LMGO) “Ecoterra”