Stonyfield Farms Interview

Our working title for Chapter 5 is "Small Business--Long Reach." If we use Stonyfield Farms in that chapter as we currently plan, then we'll probably have to change the title. Although it began in 1983 as an organic farm school in New Hampshire with seven cows as its chief asset, its current run rate is about $200 million annually and and it claims to be the leader in organic yogurt, selling 18 million cups of the stuff a month. 

We interviewed Christine Halvorson, Stonyfield's chief blogger. Here are her comments with just a few cuts for brevity sake.  We have been vigilant not to change the context:

1. Stonyfield now has five blogs.  What’s the thinking on having so many?

We have some discern able, easily identifiable niche markets in our audience, so it seemed appropriate. The five topics of the five blogs are meant to appeal to those niches:

(1) Women

(2) People concerned about junk food in schools and healthy kids

(3) Organic farmers and those who want to read about organic food production

(4) Parents of very young children and,

(5) Our incredibly loyal customer base.

2. Are you the only blogger? Why do you blog? What made you start?

I am the primary writer for three out of the five blogs. The other two:  Baby Babble is made up heavily of entries from a roster of six Stonyfield employees who are parents of very young children and babies. I recruited them because we wanted to talk parenting, yet I am not a parent.  Second, The Bovine Bugle is written entirely by one of the farmers. He writes about his daily life. I review it for editing/style only and then post. We bought him a digital camera and he contributes great photos.

We started blogging on April 1, 2004—it was entirely the idea of our CEO Gary Hirshberg, (He prefers being called CE'YO)who saw the value in the relationship-building aspects of blogging.  [He was concerned that having grown so rapidly over 20 years] we would lose touch with what has always been a very committed and loyal customer base.  I give him credit for having such foresight to see that communication could become a problem and for seeing blogging as one means to address that. Guerrilla marketing is how we built our company, and blogging certainly was and remains on the cutting edge of corporate “branding” tools.

3. What impact has it had for Stonyfield? How has it changed Stonyfield’s business?

We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from professionals in the marketing community about what we’re doing. The public relations community is watching us with a wary eye (“What? Uncontrolled corporate messages? Unheard of!”)  We know the readers who come to read our blogs and occasionally comment are enjoying them. The Bovine Bugle inspires a lot of nostalgia about farming, while providing insight into the methods of organics. The Baby Babble inspires a lot of parents—or at least gives them a place to rant and find like-minded parents. We hope we are entertaining, that folks are finding us from other blogs, or accidental stumbling upon us while visiting our website.  Like many public relations endeavors, it’s hard to quantify, but we assume we’ve garnered some positive impressions among our readers and that’s what counts most, not necessarily our ROI.

4. What else does Stonyfield do to market itself?  How does it fit in with blogging?

We do traditional print and television advertising, but far less than other food companies. It was only up until recently that we did paid advertising at all. As noted above, guerrilla marketing is our thing.  We do a lot of sampling and community events.  We sponsor “Strong Women Summits”—women-focused events to appeal to our prime consumers.  We put branded healthy snack vending machines in the public schools.  We have a PR team which also gets our name out there in traditional ways. [CEO]Gary would tell you that we see our yogurt cup as an educational tool—we use its lid to spread whatever messages we think are important—and those are often related to environmental initiatives.  Blogging fits with all of that because we’ve always been a company with a particular point of view, with opinions, with a mission beyond making money (though making money is good too) and with the guts to take risks. 

6. Can you give us some examples of your guerrilla marketing programs?

One very recent example was a "Salute Your Commute" effort. We had people standing at subway exits in Boston and New York last summer handing out our products free to say thank you to folks using public transportation. We'll be doing this again on Earth Day in Boston, then some other cities. There's also an unverified story about our CEO taking the first few batches of yogurt around to local grocers and literally spooning it into their mouths to get them to stock it.

7. What advice do you have for other small businesses who are considering blogging?

(1) Don’t bog down the blog with excessive policies and procedures. That’s the only reason Stonyfield’s have worked so well. We go with the flow and the rest of the company flows along.

(2) Develop a thick skin. Bloggers aren’t necessarily nice.

(3) Post often and be interesting. Readers are fickle.

(4) Be authentic. Do not use it as yet another public relations or advertising outlet. Write like a real person talks.

8. Do you have any cautions about blogging?

Control spam at all costs. You will lose your life if you don’t stop it before it gets in the door.

9. Any additional comments that you think would be useful or interesting?

If you get into blogging, do it for a couple of weeks before you announce it to the world. You want to work out the kinks and figure out your work flow before you make a big deal out of it.