Purina Animal Nutrition Beef-on-Dairy Leadership

Client

Purina Animal Nutrition

Challenge

Consumer demand for high-quality beef persists, even as native beef cattle numbers are low. The beef-on-dairy industry is poised to bridge the gap, supplementing as much as 15% of the supply chain. Beef-on-dairy cattle are a hybrid of dairy and beef breeds, produced by mating dairy cows with beef bulls for improved meat characteristics such as red meat yield and marbling.

Purina Animal Nutrition’s latest survey of dairy and beef producers revealed a major opportunity: 80% of dairy producers and 58% of cattle raisers are receiving a premium for beef-on-dairy calves, proving blending beef genetics into dairy herds is not just a trend – it is the future of sustainable, high-quality beef production.

The beef-on-dairy approach unlocks new revenue streams for producers while delivering consistent, top-tier beef products to meet the expectations of today’s increasingly discerning consumers. The beef-on-dairy system brings value to the supply chain by:

Ensuring a steady beef supply to consumers.
Delivering full traceability across the supply chain.
Boosting environmental sustainability.
Raising the bar on meat quality.

Solution

Working together, Purina Animal Nutrition and Curious Plot have developed and executed on a multi-year plan to:

Help foster collaboration in the beef-on-dairy category, bringing in outside experts from industry, academia and production.
Elevate Purina’s expertise within the category.
Highlight the nutrition needs specific to these crossbred animals.
Position Purina PrimeStart™ Nutrition Program as ideal to help beef-on-dairy producers capture the most value from these animals.

Two-pronged approach to execution

Executing on thought leadership:

Rich content: As the beef-on-dairy sector grows and evolves, Purina Animal Nutrition has produced the first two versions of the Beef-on-Dairy Industry Report. This comprehensive report, developed in partnership with more than 10 top industry experts each year, offers an in-depth look at the entire supply chain to help producers smart, profitable decisions.
Media relations: Using the report’s key insights, we launched public-relations efforts designed to build credibility and extend our reach. These efforts integrate with paid media opportunities that amplify our presence.
Event execution: Our approach also capitalizes on media relations opportunities created by the Beef-on-Dairy Summit that Purina produces at its research farm, bringing together a hand-picked group of industry experts to continue the dialogue.

Building the PrimeStart brand:

Over multiple years, we’ve fostered demand for PrimeStart, a nutrition program specific for beef-on-dairy animals encompassing milk replacer and starter feeds. This has included technical content, illustrating the impact of PrimeStart on the development of each calf’s rumen and the eventual quality of each animal at harvest.
The approach also has included launching a 2025 brand campaign for PrimeStart, with a call to action of “Unleash the Beef.” The creative materializes in dairy platforms, serving a dual-purpose of encouraging dairy producers to think of themselves as part of the supply chain while associating PrimeStart as a critical nutrition solution.

Measuring Results

Regarding the 2024 beef-on-dairy report, measurement of results included media impressions from earned media placements with key agriculture trade media outlets, downloads of report, media interviews with professionals featured in the report and positive consumer and industry professional sentiments.

The first report, from 2024, resulted in more than 8.1 million media impressions total.

More than 3.7 million impressions from earned media placements with key agriculture trade media outlets.
More than 4.4 million impressions across digital native, prospecting and remarketing ads.

The report gained more than 500 downloads from the purinamills.com/dairy-beef website.

The report also earned interview interest at World Dairy Expo and NAFB Trade Talk with numerous media outlets, including Brownfield Ag Network, Mid-America Ag Network, Midwest Farm Report, Feedstuffs, Progressive Dairy, Hoard’s Dairyman and more.

PrimeStart Paid Media Results
E-Blasts with Farm Journal: To maximize visibility and engagement, we partnered with Farm Journal, an outlet familiar with the beef-on-dairy sector. This allowed us to not only align content with a trusted publisher but also strategically place messaging in front of audiences actively seeking this information.

April 2025 deployment: 1,250 impressions, 26 clicks, 2% CTR (vs. 0.7% benchmark).
June 2025 deployment: 2,537 impressions, 29 clicks, 1.2% CTR (vs. 0.7% benchmark).

Programmatic advertising: Our programmatic approach was designed to reach a highly targeted audience by leveraging contextual targeting around key beef-on-dairy articles. This strategy ensured relevance, improved efficiency and boosted performance against benchmarks.

Prospecting YTD: 303,961 impressions, 900 clicks, 0.30% CTR (vs. 0.07% benchmark).
Remarketing YTD: 151,953 impressions, 870 clicks, 0.57% CTR (vs. 0.07% benchmark).

2024 Beef-on-Dairy Report