Why are consumers so skeptical these days?
One word: HYPE!
Lose the hype! A chicken egg is a chicken egg… or is it?
Consider the following…
Factory farm-produced eggs are laid by unnamed, closely-caged, stressed out hens whose necks get unceremoniously wrung and broken (ACK!) as soon as they stop laying fewer eggs than they “should”. Male chicks are often suffocated (under the bulk of other male chicks) in large plastic barrels as the hatchlings are separated by gender because they’re considered “useless” to the egg-producing industry.)(This is horrendous treatment, all the way around, if you’re an animal lover or animal welfare advocate).
Backyard pet chickens have names like Goldie (I eat Goldie’s eggs. Thank you, Goldie!). They’re often pet-able and quite often spoiled rotten. When their owners step into the back yard, these chickens come running as if Christmas has arrived and every package you’re carrying has their names on it.
Still other chickens are raised on family farms where they may or may not be named or hug-able but, like backyard chickens, they’re free ranging, usually treated better, and far less stressed-out than battery-caged hens. They, too, come running when they hear grain sacks rustling in the barn…or before. They consider their caretakers benevolent.
What egg producers feed their chickens (and allow them to eat otherwise) matters, too. Free range hens eat bugs, worms, grubs, seeds, live vegetation, and lots of other stuff that factory-raised, battery-cage-housed hens don’t have access to. (No manufactured chicken feed mirrors exactly what chickens eat when left to their own devices.)
The differences between a free range and factory-produced chicken (and its eggs) are evident to anyone with a pair of eyes, taste buds, and a heart that cares about animals.
Battery cage chickens have their beaks blunted by hot, sharp blades so they can’t injure their wing-to-wing cage mates. Free-roaming chickens get to keep their beaks and spar for position to pick up provided and uncovered morsels, which is fine because their comrades are free to dart out of the way and find something else to eat farther afield.
Free range egg yolks are yellower, the whites are more robust, and the taste is far superior.
So…how are factory-farmed eggs advertised to the public? It has to be true, so they can’t say all that much that’s positive. They can say what the egg delivers to your system, nutrition-wise, but that’s about it.
Look at how much more a free range chicken egg producer can claim! Their chickens get to be chickens! The food they eat is both provided and uncovered by the hens in their barnyard and they’re freed to forage, which enhances the taste, appearance and nutrition of the eggs.
If you raise free range chickens and sell the eggs, you can feel quite free to elicit your buyer’s emotions when you talk about your chickens. You’ll lose strict vegetarians and vegans, but you’ve lost them anyway. For every vegan you lose, you’ll gain multiple animal lovers who continue to enjoy eggs (and chicken) because they’ll know the birds have pretty stinkin’ awesome lives and that, as their owner/caretaker, you take their wants and needs into consideration.
When it comes to factory-farmed, caged-bird eggs, of course, you need to avoid eliciting your buyers’ emotions. You need to make your spiel all about the egg itself, not about the way in which its producer was raised, handled and dispatched as soon as it stopped producing well enough to satisfy you.
So when it comes to advertising or informing others about your product or service, think it through. List (for yourself) its features and benefits; contrast them with your competitor’s.
If you’re free range egg producers, you’ll have to discover whatever it is about you that is uniquely different from your competitor. Will it be price? The way you treat your chickens? What they’re fed as supplements to their foraging ways? The way they’re housed when they roost at night? Is it your unique, quirky personality? There’s always something that differentiates you from your competitors. Find it!
If your chickens are pets, produce a fun, light-hearted video about them. Introduce them: Say their names. Do close ups; let people hear them cluck and examine the camera lens. Make your customers care by allowing them to understand that your chickens aren’t nameless, faceless hens; they’re “personalities”!
Shine a spotlight on whatever is positive, true and solid about whatever your product or service is. Use real facts; contrast why your option is better.
Now you know why free range eggs are “better than” battery-cage eggs, for the chickens that lay the eggs and for the consumer of those eggs.
Do the same kind of thing by contrasting whatever you offer to a competitor’s.
Another quick example:
USA-made clothes are produced by people (sometimes neighbors you know) who need real jobs; the employers don’t rely on out-sourcing to international sweatshops where women and children work long hours seven days a week in deplorable conditions for (if they’re lucky) a couple dollars a day. Buying American-made stimulates our economy… etc.
