Editorial: Tallahassee's meager support undermines OJ's message

Author, blogger, advertising guru and Marketing Hall of Fame member Seth Godin has slightly cynical advice that could apply in business, politics, or anywhere else one needs to sell something.

"Facts are irrelevant," Godin says. "What matters is what the consumer believes."

Hopefully, the consumer's belief can still be coaxed by successful marketing strategies built on facts. At any rate, it is advice Florida citrus growers and processors may want to consider. They certainly need more people to believe in their product, specifically orange juice.

To that end, Ron Ward, professor emeritus of food and resource economics at the University of Florida, last week urged the Bartow-based Florida Citrus Commission to accentuate the positive when pitching OJ. As The Ledger reported, Ward said boosting consumer awareness of OJ's health benefits from 10% to 40% could increase annual sales by 44 million gallons. Yet if awareness fell 10%, sales would fall by 42 million gallons a year.

"The message is much more important than the targeting," Ward told commissioners. "When the message is positive, all these groups will respond. I don’t worry as much who you target as I do the message you’re sending out."

It's simple, commonsense advice for growers and processors alike. With a product like OJ, both familiar and portrayed as detrimental, an uplifting message with broad-based appeal could be more persuasive than targeting specific groups. And improving or maintaining physical health, for example, is something a large swath of Americans care about.

The OJ industry's biggest challenge, as noted previously in this space, is that others do an effective job of pushing the negative. For years, so-called health experts have tried to steer consumers away from OJ by pointing out that its sugar content rivals that of soda, and that has contributed to rising rates of obesity and other ill effects. As The Wall Street Journal reported in February 2018, "Greater public awareness of orange juice’s high sugar content has dented its image as a healthy drink."

That, coupled with more intense competition in the beverage market and rising prices, the latter likely influenced by falling domestic production because of the greening disease, have pushed down sales.

According to Citrus Industry magazine, a decade ago Americans consumed 629 million gallons of OJ. Five years later consumption had dropped to 526 million gallons. For 2017, it was down to 429 million gallons. Meanwhile, prices have gone in the opposite direction. In 2009, Citrus Industry reports, Americans paid $5.61 a gallon for OJ. By 2014, the price was up to $6.29. In 2017, consumers doled out $6.71 a gallon.

Last year, however, OJ witnessed a slight sales jump — 0.9%, its first year-over-year uptick in almost five years, the Journal noted. What changed? "It took one of the worst flu seasons on record to get more Americans guzzling orange juice again," the Journal reported. "The most severe flu outbreak in the U.S. in at least eight years has those worried about getting sick turning to this traditional source of vitamin C, helping boost sales for the first time since April 2013." The Journal added that a similar concern over a swine flu outbreak in 2009 helped nudge OJ sales up 8%.

This seems to be what Professor Ward is talking about: a positive message, in this case about preventing the flu, that could cut across a broad spectrum of consumerdom.

Yet here's the thing. As the Journal reported last year, "Scientific research ... suggests only a tenuous connection between orange juice consumption and flu prevention. ... While fans of orange juice point to its high vitamin-C content, the NIH (National Institutes of Health) says that doesn’t prevent illness."

Still, cue Godin: facts don't matter, but what the consumer believes does.

Tallahassee, however, opted to add insult to injury. As The Ledger reported last week, $4.1 million was axed from the Citrus Department in the 2020 state budget — from its marketing program. To his credit, Gov. Ron DeSantis included $5 million for the department's marketing efforts, continuing former Gov. Rick Scott's practice. Yet the Florida House shamefully zeroed that out. The Senate sought something in between. Ultimately, the department will get $935,000 for marketing come July 1.

It's beyond disappointing that in a record-setting spending plan lawmakers couldn't support the governor's request for the citrus industry, and especially for Florida's most iconic agricultural product. That sends a terrible message to Florida's citrus growers and processors. Worse, it hobbles their efforts to spread the word about their product. To paraphrase Godin, OJ producers, unfortunately, can believe their worth has diminished considerably in Tallahassee's eyes by the fact that their marketing funding shriveled.