Episode 31:
David Lazarenko
What does advertising have to do with agricultural extension? In this episode of The Extensionists, Jay Whetter and Toban Dyck sit down for a conversation with David Lazarenko, partner and executive vice president at ThinkShift, to discuss the connections between agricultural advertising and extension.
Listen here:
Transcript
Toban Dyck 00:03
This is the extensionist conversations with great thinkers in agriculture. I’m Toban Dyck and I’m Jay Wen,
Toban Dyck 00:14
hey, Toban, Hey, Jay. Yeah, we’re just gonna go and we’re just gonna get into it. So today we have David Lazarenko, yeah, think shift, he’s the, what is his title
Jay Whetter 00:28
partner and Executive Vice President,
Toban Dyck 00:31
you know him? Yeah, a little bit, yeah. I met him. I met him once. So I’m really this, I’m really excited about this one. Yeah, well, advertising and marketing?
Jay Whetter 00:41
Yeah, exactly. He’s had a whole career in in marketing. Like you said, advertising and marketing. I just like that stuff. I mean, I’m it’s not a world I live in, but I think like that creative how to create an ad that has impact, how to, you know, a marketing approach to basically everything we do, we’re probably marketing ourselves. And how do we do that more effectively? Even if we gather up a few little tips from David, I think it’ll be a great conversation.
Toban Dyck 01:10
Yeah, and how to create marketing products and ads that don’t look like marketing products and ads, right? Yeah, it’s just like that. That’s the trick. Yeah, right. It’s not Yeah,
Jay Whetter 01:20
connecting or creating a large campaign and trying to connect with everybody on an individual level? Yeah, possible, but, I mean, that’s the objective, right? Does that you kind of twig in something? Yeah, Twig something in someone to, you know, make them remember you
Toban Dyck 01:36
did you watch Mad Men?
Jay Whetter 01:39
I saw an episode, maybe a couple. Did I watch it? Well, I mean,
Toban Dyck 01:45
so it’s gonna be two people talking about Mad Men. Who have not watched Mad Men. So I haven’t either my wife, Jamie, has, and she loves it. And, I mean, it gets referenced all the time. Yeah, a good mutual friend of ours, Steve always jokes that, you know, my job is like, John Draper and Don Don Draper, Don Draper played by John ham, played by John ham, who’s in Winnipeg right now, or was in Winnipeg, yeah, yeah. And it’s like, very like, slick, you, you know, you like, you know, scotch bar in your office kind of thing. And you have people in and you talk creative, and you get lots of money, and, like, the advertising era is what in the 60s or 70s, and it’s just as kind of very, very kind of wild, almost kind of hedonistic, just money flowing in enterprise, which isn’t it isn’t the case anymore in marketing and advertising, but a lot of people still have that, or that kind of that Real Manta sized picture, but you haven’t seen it?
Jay Whetter 02:42
No, no, no.
Toban Dyck 02:44
But I in some cases, it is still the case. And I mean even birth forest
Jay Whetter 02:50
groups, in some cases, it’s still the case. Are you? You could edit that
Toban Dyck 02:57
100% of the time it works 50% of the time.
03:03
Okay, what were you trying
Toban Dyck 03:04
to say? Well, I was trying. I was attempting to say that there is still that, that notion of the pitch to the client. I think that’s an interesting that’s an interesting thing too,
Speaker 1 03:15
yeah, and you kind of do that, yeah, yeah.
Toban Dyck 03:19
We Yeah. You pitch to people all the time. It’s a little different than the Mad Men kind of scenario. But we still, we still do is still like, the pitch the proposal. You got to convince someone that your creative idea is, is the one, and that’s going to get them to where they need to be, yeah, and all and all that, all that kind of stuff. I mean, it’s in article writing. I’m sure it’s similar, right? I mean, you, you pitch your you pitch or people pitch you. People pitch me sometimes, yeah, right, unless you gotta, they make their case, yeah, usually they know that’d be persuasive, yeah? So I have it. I’m gonna save it for the for the podcast, but I have an advertisement in mind that I want to chat with him. Yeah.
Jay Whetter 04:02
Okay. Well, this is exciting. It is now. I can’t wait to get to that part of the podcast. Let’s get to it. Okay. Do you like what you’re hearing and want to support the extensionists? If you are an agriculture company or association looking for a powerful way to get your message in front of Canadian farmers, then partner with us. Our listeners are farmers from coast to coast.
Toban Dyck 04:24
When you advertise with us, your brand isn’t just another commercial break, it becomes part of our story. Ads on the extensionists are personal and trusted. Our listeners value what they hear on the podcast,
Jay Whetter 04:37
whether you’re looking for a 62nd ad somewhere throughout the podcast or even an exclusive episode sponsorship, we have options that will work for you.
Toban Dyck 04:45
So if you’re ready to get your message out there and connect with farmers across Canada, let’s talk visit the extensionists.com for more information. Our
Jay Whetter 04:59
guest is. Is David Lazarenko, who’s a Partner and Executive Vice President of think shift agency in Winnipeg. David, I’ve known you for a long time, but it’s great to have you.
David Lazarenko 05:08
Thanks. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, really nice to be with you guys. So we’re
Jay Whetter 05:11
going to talk about all kinds of stuff, mostly about like marketing, because that’s your that’s your first love, and I find that so interesting. Even though I don’t know much about it, I know almost as much about marketing as I do about making coffee. Wow, you can tell our listeners where that comment comes from. Well, it’s a legacy of a podcast recorded earlier today, so who knows when they’re going to appear in people’s ears, but
Toban Dyck 05:40
we learned that Jay likes instant coffee, and that’s
Jay Whetter 05:44
no one was talking about all of his 1000s of dollars of coffee makers, like a whole, like whole, it’s like a Canadian Tire or not Canadian Tire, because he can’t buy a mocha master Canadian Tire.
Toban Dyck 05:56
To know that I did not talk about my coffee makers in terms of dollar value,
Jay Whetter 06:04
but my coffee maker is a jar in the cupboard.
06:07
But you also cattle well, you also
Toban Dyck 06:09
incorporate elements like the microwave you mentioned. So you
David Lazarenko 06:13
microwave the milk. Who wants cold milk in their coffee?
Toban Dyck 06:16
We’re trying to be charitable with our responses, but
Jay Whetter 06:22
I don’t know much about marketing. Yes, you hit the nail right on the head, David, that’s why we have you here. Well, but before we get to that, we need to talk about comic books. Another thing well. So I know as much about coffee marketing and no, I know as much about marketing as I do about coffee, and I know as much about comic books, as I do about coffee, although I have read Archie Comics. Arch Okay,
David Lazarenko 06:45
wow, is that good? Is that? That’s the Dyck, that’s the instant coffee of coffee. The instant coffee of I think so, right? I don’t know if you’ll find comic book fans out there. You know the big comic pawn folks. I don’t know how many are showing up for the Archie pound? No, no. I think, I think it’s a little bit lower on the run the DCS and the marvels of the others right now. But maybe there is another universe out there. I’m just not, not following.
Jay Whetter 07:16
But yeah, yeah, I gotta go. I’m gonna go to different my own. Different.
David Lazarenko 07:24
1950 might have been big back in the day, but, yeah, yeah.
Jay Whetter 07:31
All right, well, so what is it about, like, what? Tell me, tell me about this comic book history. And what is it about it? Because there’s, they’re incredibly creative. I do know that. And then, and there’s a, it’s a massive genre. I mean, you talked about Comic Con, but what is it about them that appeals to you?
David Lazarenko 07:46
So I’ve been a, I’ve been a lifelong fan, of course, you know, like I got into them when I was young, but, and then, kind of throughout, you know, the high school, university days gone out of it a little bit, just busy with life, and then got back into them and and there was something about it, like you said, there’s a creativity to them. People, when they think comics, they typically think of imagery, you know, it’s like, oh, it’s, it’s, it’s hand drawn storytelling, and that’s a big part of it. But the part that they don’t get is the the layers of stories that are that are put into it, and the difficulty of telling a story in so few words, I think, is interesting. So I don’t know there was something from a marketing communicator standpoint, I just, I found really interesting.
Jay Whetter 08:39
Well, yeah, so what you’re talking about, the layering. What do you mean? Yeah, so, like, so is it what? There’s the stories within the imagery or
David Lazarenko 08:47
so, here’s, here’s a great example with the with the Marvel Universe that became so successful, everyone with the movies were so amazed at the fact that they could over a series of like, 15 years, weave together all these movies into this big overall narrative arc that made sense at the end. And everyone was like, This is unbelievable, but that’s what comics have been doing for years. Is in like, whether it’s DC or Marvel, you have like, hundreds of characters, and they’re all off doing their own things, but they’re living in the same universe. They’re in the same world. And then sometimes they come together, and these stories blend, and they have to have this, like, consistency, so that makes sense. And so you have these layers of like, what’s happening over here actually had a little tweak that was over here, and it was just really, like, interesting, strategic things. So I don’t know it just something about it. It was just the creativity, the thinking, the depth, the stories. People don’t give it credit. They think comics narrow, sure, like, yeah, not much depth.
Jay Whetter 09:58
Yeah, some, yeah, some nerd and. His room by himself. Are you
David Lazarenko 10:09
saying you were the I was? Yeah, absolutely. This is how we treat our guests, yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you for having really nice
10:30
All right, no, seriously, though, I the the gonna wait
Toban Dyck 10:35
for Jay to get through his questions before, right?
Jay Whetter 10:38
Yeah, you please jump in. But I just, I can see that. I definitely see the the appeal. So, yeah, so you got all these arcs going on. You got these characters out in the periphery, if you’re reading one comic about whatever person, Spider Man, yeah. But you know that there’s all these other like you just in your mind, you know that they’re all out there somewhere. But the like, I think, Well, I think we have to get to potentially using that imagery in extension, which we kind of a fun way. I never thought we would make it this way. But what was it about that that kind of led to your career path? Was it was that something that inspired you
David Lazarenko 11:15
a bit, yeah, like so I, I always, I think it was the artistic side of it, the creative, the creative side of it. I, I thought that that was so amazing. And I I used to like try to draw when I was young, and I didn’t have a God given talent for for being able to draw and sketch and do artistic things, and, and, and I always thought it was so cool that people had that that talent. And when I got into university and started progression into like, what I want to do as a career, I knew I wanted to get into business. I knew I was going to do commerce. And then I heard about this world of marketing and, more specifically, advertising agencies. And I heard about like that they did creative. And it was astounding to me that something that was business related could have creative as part of it. Yeah, and that just sounded perfect to me. It just sounded leverage of these two things that made sense to me, this idea of business and creative? Well, that sounds perfect. And then that really became my purpose. I wanted to work in an agency. I wanted to get into the agency business and and that’s been my career like it’s been 25 years now that I’ve been in the agency world of marketing. Yeah, that’s amazing.
Jay Whetter 12:38
I know you’re running the business, yeah. Do you do much creative yourself anymore? Like, was that part of your
David Lazarenko 12:45
I was never on the creative side. I was never, I grew up on the account side, the strategy side. Now you would have people say, like that strategy is creative as well. For sure. You know, like that, that it’s not, it’s not binary, it’s not well, if you’re not, if you’re not drawing things, or if you’re not designing or you’re not writing copy, you’re not creative. So brainstorming and concept, I’ve been involved in that, and I still do get to, I do, I still do a lot, a fair bit of strategy with her clients. And so that’s my, that’s my creative, right? Like I
Jay Whetter 13:23
said, though, I mean, it’s not drawing things, or it’s not, but it’s still very creative.
David Lazarenko 13:27
And I wish, like, I still wish I could have, I, you know, I wish I could have, and would have explored some of that, you know, the design side of things, video, like animation and things like that as well. It’s pretty interesting with AI being able to create absolutely so it actually does make me feel even more creative. Yeah, it’s probably creatives out there that are gonna say, Oh, you pretender, yeah.
Jay Whetter 13:56
And when, how did think shift evolve? I know it’s had different names. I mean, it wasn’t when you first started. You first started, but, yeah, just give me, give us a career arc. Absolutely.
David Lazarenko 14:07
So I started when we were two agencies that merged to become one. I started with one of those agencies, which was BCG Bowman communications group with a gentleman by the name of Robert Bowman. He had a small agency. I think I was the seventh or eighth hire and and it was that agency that did a lot of work with agricultural clients, and that was where I got introduced into the world of agriculture. Was I always like so Cargill was my first client, and which was, which was like the perfect client to learn about agriculture, because they were, they were basically involved in almost every aspect of the value chain that is agriculture. And then I fell in love with agriculture. This was, like, such an amazing part of business. And then we merged. Worked. I bought in with on that side of the business, started helping to run it with him, and then we merged with, at the time, what was like a digital and brand shop. This was at the big amalgamation of traditional and digital agencies in 2010 to become think shift in 2011 and we’ve been since that time kind of really focused mainly on kind of agri marketing, and trying, you know, always be two steps ahead if we can and bring into agri marketing what we feel like is kind of best practices. Yeah, this
Toban Dyck 15:37
must be an exciting time in Ag Marketing, especially someone who likes comic books and stuff, because there is an appetite for that, for that kind of extension or that kind of communication, right? And I think, you know, Jay, I have talked about too, like, just, there’s a there’s an appetite for more creative ways to get messages across. And I think now kind of more than not, I don’t know, more than ever, but more than the last decade. There’s, there’s a willingness to go there. Like, you know, you can pitch a comic book to a client. They probably, they might, they might take it, yeah. But I think
Jay Whetter 16:10
of it like, yeah, there’s when you write for radio, you got to condense everything down to about four sentences. And I think writing for actually, the comic books add a secondary element, which is visual, which is yes, so you got the visual creativity and but he said earlier about writing, like creating, telling a story with so few words, yes, and I think we, I think that’s I’m not good at that. You can tell I ramble. And so cutting down to fewer words is is, but it’s an objective of mine. And when I talk about, like, presentations and PowerPoints, I mean, if you can put three words on the screen instead of, or never 300 or an image, you’re, I think you’re telling a much more powerful story, yes. And I think even with comic books, if there’s, maybe I don’t know, 1000 words in a whole book, versus, I mean, I think, yeah, the fact you can tell an amazing, compelling story that has a billion fans, you know, I don’t know how many people, but, I mean, huge, yeah, is, is something there’s something there. Like, obviously, it’s working. Why don’t we do more of that in extension?
David Lazarenko 17:21
I because I think it’s, it’s not easy. It’s not It’s, is it the Winston Churchill quote, If I had more time, would have written a shorter letter. It’s not easy. It’s, it’s, it’s easier just to to throw it all out there, like all the features, all the benefits, all the background, and put the effort on the audience to sort it all out. It’s much more difficult to do the work. And I do think that, like, I love what you said, Toban, like I do feel like we are entering into a new time, a new period. There’s so many things happening in agriculture at large while the world at large, that is going to be forcing us to do things differently. And I think it’s on us to to tell better stories, or to tell stories better even I think,
Toban Dyck 18:15
yeah, yeah, I like that. Tell stories better.
Jay Whetter 18:18
Like, can you think of an example of something, and it doesn’t have to be like, non, non public, yeah, because you can’t share stuff, but, but stuff that’s out in the world now that you’re like, you’re particularly proud of it could be something that just came out last month. Who knows? Because it hit those elements where it was concise, words, great visuals and the results. I mean, measuring results is sometimes a challenge, but mean that really hit all the buttons.
David Lazarenko 18:52
Yeah, it’s a it’s a hard one to think of, because maybe it’s just, I’m always challenging my own thinking is whether I’ve, whether I think I’ve actually
Jay Whetter 19:06
or even an ad that you saw like you say you like actually looking at might be an easier way to approach it. Yeah.
David Lazarenko 19:17
So I’ll maybe, instead of it being an ad or an image I do like to paint the picture of like. So we were actually talking about Amazon earlier, when I was asking you about your coffee maker. And, yeah, and, and so one of the things that Amazon has done very well, very, very well, is they have tried to remove friction. They’ve tried to eliminate as much as possible what the audience has to do, and do that for you, you know, and we don’t think about it in a lot of ways, because we’ve become just so inclined to expect it now. So they will, you know, you coffee, make a couple of words, key, search, whatever. They’ll bring up and nine times out of 10, what you’re kind of looking for is going to be in that search. They have all now listed, whether this is a sponsored piece, or whether it’s a top product piece, or whether it’s highest rated. All that right, at very first glance, you could see, is this a out of five stars? How many and how many people really like this? And then it’s just the key benefits, price, yeah, whether it’s on discount, yeah, all these things that, as a consumer, we want answered, they give to us in seconds, right? It’s not a long search, it’s not an arduous search, not any of that. It’s all right there, and then they’ll give you, here’s other products that are kind of like that too, yeah, and it’s just this whole idea of how much work they put into that, so that we had to do as little work on our end, right? And I think that that like, it’ll go into storytelling and what you have, like on a brochure or an ad or whatever it says. But that’s that essence, is that, like, we will make it easier for people to consume and absorb and make the decisions that they need to make. So that’s the example, at least, that came to mind,
Toban Dyck 21:14
yeah, yeah. That’s a really, that’s Yeah, yeah. And do appreciate the work that went into the back end of something like that, right? Yeah? Like, yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely, yeah. Trying to think of, do you have an example of, like, an advertisement or something like that that really stands out to you?
Jay Whetter 21:31
Yeah, that’s great. I’ll put David on the spot. Yeah, I know. Oh boy. Well, I was listening to the radio this morning. I listened to a lot of CBC Radio, so I don’t hear see a lot of ads. Things pop up on jamming on and or on sports all the time. But yeah, okay, go.
Toban Dyck 21:54
Just advertising is an interesting one, which we’re talking about now, but on the corner of highway three and highway 14. So if you continue going down Highway three, you hit highway 14, which runs between Winkler and Morton. Yeah, there’s a big billboard and all it says, Sorry, Abby, I’m gonna cough. Producer, it just says, Welcome home. And it’s a picture of Winkler, and it’s a triple E advertisement, like, for the right for the RV, they make RVs okay in town here, but it’s like, it’s actually just a really kind of warm, fuzzy advertisement, and it’s huge, and it just says, Welcome home. It’s just like, that’s like, sometimes ads just hit, right? That’s a great point, yeah, you know. And it’s just like, that was one where you just drove by and you felt like, yeah, like, I’m from the town, and it’s like, that feels good actually, like it’s a strange one, because it’s not saying anything about the business, you know, it’s not saying shop here or anything like that. Just says, Welcome home.
David Lazarenko 22:52
You know, that reminds me of something, and this definitely goes into the world of extension and storytelling and and why we don’t do stuff more often is so nine times out of 10 we’re doing communications, myself, especially with an agency, we’re doing communications for a business, for profit business, and we’ve either got a product or a brand or we’ve got something that we want the other side, the audience, to engage with or buy, or whatever it is. And so our very perspective is, there’s so much we want to tell you about it. Yes. So all we’re thinking of what is, what should we say? What? What? What do we need to tell you, versus what does the audience need to hear? What do they want to hear? So you being a good case in that one, the audience just saying, Welcome home. Yeah, could mean so many things to that audience in a great way, more than Hey, we got great RV you know what I mean? Like, or we’re local. Call out we’re local. Or you can say, Welcome home. Yeah. And one is more impactful and emotional than the other. Like, it’s very emotive.
Toban Dyck 24:03
Yeah, very, yeah, absolutely. But how? Like, how, how much courage it takes. Yes, another one, absolutely, yeah, yeah. How much courage it takes to say less when you have the opportunity. So you have a billboard, you’re like, holy cow, we’ve got a billboard here. We have to pack everything on this thing that we need to tell the person driving by vehicle, the same with a PowerPoint deck, right? Like you got, you got the slide? You’re like, yeah, I could do five words, but that’s, you know, that’s not quite enough. I also need to say this, but you don’t like, Are you like? It takes courage to not do that, right? Yeah, and trust that your audience is smart and is thinking critically and is also going to make the leaps that you want them to make when they see this or experience it. I think it’s sorry.
Jay Whetter 24:52
This is just a little commentary about this conversation where we see ads dozens, if not hundreds. Of times a day, and the fact that I can’t think of an ad when you ask me, I think that is, I think I don’t know whether it’s I’m not really, I’m not paying attention because I’m not buying stuff necessarily. But I think that’s really interesting. Like, how do you capturing someone’s attention in a memorable way that is tough.
David Lazarenko 25:21
That’s yeah, in our in the world of marketing, that’s to a certain extent, one of the biggest trends taking place right now is that people aren’t remembering ads. They’re not remembering content like they used to. They’re remembering experiences. And so, like, I use the Amazon one, because people will remember that experience that they had, and so that, because we are just bombarded by so much that even good, some good stuff that could be in there is fleeting, and we don’t remember it like we used to, like, I still go back and I can think, I can think of jingles and taglines galore from years ago, for sure, but not from the last five years. No, much more. I’m just
Jay Whetter 26:08
trying to think, like, I go grocery we all do go grocery shopping at least once a week, and I buy this often, the same things. Yeah, coffee. You got your Yeah. Like, I don’t go walking up and down the aisles thinking I’m looking for this thing I saw on an ad. I don’t know, just it’s the challenge of advertising, exactly kind of what you’re saying. David, yeah, like to read, to reach people. Like to you, mean, to actually change someone’s mind. But do you this is a great it is a
David Lazarenko 26:39
good, yeah. Great question for you is in that, like, do you buy something because an ad told you or convinced you to? Or do you buy something because the sum total of the interactions you’ve had with that brand made you feel good to the extent that you’re gonna say, Hey, I’m gonna give it a shot. Like, yeah, and I think that, again, that’s that idea is it’s, I, maybe I’ll get in trouble saying this as an agency guy that I don’t think, I don’t think ads sell product specifically, they are one part of a big overall effort of building, you know, telling the right story, connecting people to your brand, ensuring that they feel that this is a trusted source. I don’t think there’s one magical ad out there that’ll take someone from. I don’t know who you are, to sign me up, you know, tomorrow, yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe that be. I’m trying to think if, like, maybe there was a time where that was the case, I don’t know anymore,
Jay Whetter 27:44
or it’s when we talk about empathy and connecting with people. Yeah, they’re only going to hear the ad when they’re actually shopping for that thing, or they’re thinking about it, and then then it can, oh, yeah. But otherwise, it’s just noise and and, and, I think extension is, you know, as like, it’s a bit like that. So if a farmer is, is like, thinking about certain pest or new crop or a new seed, yeah, they’re only going to hear that message when they’re ready to hear it. Yeah.
Toban Dyck 28:19
What do you think? Well, lots of interesting things, like the benchmark for success for an ad is interesting, is an interesting kind of topic, because, yeah, you have this ad that I remember like that, welcome home. One. But, I mean, that’s just one of, you know, many that I see that have probably have varying degrees of success on me in terms of, like, behavior, persuasion or whatever, right? That’s one that kind of stands out. It’s an outlier. But that doesn’t mean it’s the only one that’s successful amid others that I don’t remember. Yeah. So you think of like a, like a, like an Instagram, like, I used to be kind of heavy on Instagram, trying to be less so for a spell, whatever doesn’t need to be a thing. But like, the advertising on there is, like, relentless and it’s, it’s repetitive and it works like, I find myself convinced that this slate of 15 products or 20 that gets re advertised to me every million times a day suddenly are the only options that I have to buy things, right? Yeah? Like, you know, like, we’re the brand of, like, outdoor gear. I’m a sucker for outdoor gear. So all of a sudden, these new brands, when I first saw them, I was like, oh, that’s new. I don’t know what it is. And then I see it over and over again, I start to be convinced that I need to get this, yeah, like, I have to buy this jacket. Like, it’s wild,
David Lazarenko 29:37
and that it goes back to what you were saying, Jay about, because we now measure, because, like, Instagram is capturing what you have been engaging with in your scroll. So it’s going to continue to deliver stuff that is it deems as relevant. And so it’s now creating this, this relevance bubble for you. Yeah, it. Does two things. Is it does deliver stuff that, like outdoor gear, which is great, which you’re going to engage with more, but it’s also filtering out stuff that that you wouldn’t, or maybe you would, but you don’t see it as much because it’s not engaging. They are starting to get smarter with it and bring in like things that are tangentially, yeah, you know, relevant, and you’re starting to see some of that, but it is very, very interesting.
Jay Whetter 30:25
We’re taking a brief break from this interview to talk with Rory Cranston. Rory is Bayer Crop sciences technical strategy lead, and we’re talking about managing tough weeds in Western Canada, specifically, what cereal farmers need to know going into the 2026 season.
Toban Dyck 30:40
So what are the biggest weed management challenges cereal growers across western Canada are facing right now, and how is that shaping their herbicide decisions?
Speaker 2 30:49
Well, I think there’s lots of individual issues to all fields. It’s a big question. But really, I think the driver it’s going to be resistant weeds. I think that’s really what’s pushing a lot of decisions and choices and narrowing down decisions, and it’s really tough in a lot of cases, because you think about how farms are going and the timelines we have to spray and the amount we have to get over, it really kind of impacts a lot of decisions on what we’re doing for controlling weeds. And, you know, resistant weeds, those are really the, I think, the drivers and the time to do it and one to get it done.
Jay Whetter 31:24
What are farmers who want to stay ahead of these resistant weeds or tough broadleaf weeds in general? What are they doing differently with their spray programs?
Speaker 2 31:32
So I’m going to start with, what are they not doing. And I think that’s kind of that recipe farming, when it comes down to it following something and doing it over and over again. Worked last year. That’s doing it across all my acres. Might work for some but those other ones, you might have an escape. I say herbicide resistance is mother nature’s way of saying, thanks for being consistent. And so I think you know the approach of, you know, being consistently inconsistent. Keep that weed guessing with whatever IPM you can do a patch management, having a good establishment, then getting into your your aspects of what can you do with your pre burns and being cognizant of early timing. Thank you
Toban Dyck 32:16
for your insights. Rory to help build out your cereal herbicide plan for 2026, talk to your local Bayer representative, or visit expert control.ca. It is, yeah, it is, even from an extension perspective, like a model, like that, like that, algorithmic kind of, you know, even, is there, is there a way to kind of incorporate that, if there is a message you need to get to a farmer, is there a way to incorporate or use those algorithms to put that in front of a farmer over and over and over again, until they start to be like, oh, yeah, okay, this is a thing, I don’t know.
Jay Whetter 32:48
And this is, I mean, you’ve started, you’re starting to look into that, right, the digital delivery, or the tech, but the online delivery. I mean, this is nothing new. And now we’re getting into the large language, language models, formats. I mean, you’ve looked, you’ve looked into this. You talked a bit about that larger theme than that at the farm Writers Conference.
David Lazarenko 33:08
Yeah, you know, there’s so few things like, again, there’s been the innovation that takes place in the digital world of marketing is is rampant, and it has been for so long and and AI is just sped it up, you know, beyond belief. And we’re going to see more newer innovations and ways that we can engage the audience. The the the interesting parts will be, again, going back to, how do we make sure that we use that to increase relevance for the audience, yeah? So make it really contextually relevant to them, so that they don’t see it as like, we’re trying to shout something that is right, that has no bearing on Yeah. So I think that’s a really interesting one. So, and then you could use repetition to make sure showing up often, like, again, reminding they’re not missing it. Yeah, yeah, not trying to just sell them on the first blast, which is okay, so that’s another one. And, and even with, like, the large language models, like, how do you, how do you show up, where same message but different, where it’s not getting stale. So, you know, again, like, it’s, it’s still around the same theme, same story, but you’re telling it in multiple relevant ways so that you’re not getting that ad blindness that happens, right? So much, but yeah,
Jay Whetter 34:27
yeah, yeah. Is it, like, can, can AI tailor an ad now to the individual? Like, is it, oh yeah, yeah. Not not delivering an ad, but actually writing the ad, like, can it? Can it think that fast? So that’s so this user at your computer with your IP, whatever. Well, that person responds to this, these words, and then so the the Honda ad, or whatever is like, perfectly tailored like. Is that what we will or do? Maybe have that already.
David Lazarenko 35:04
It’s capable of it. It’s capable of doing it for sure. And it’s getting to the point where it’s capable of doing it at scale. So you can definitely do it where you can create a persona of j, j letter. So we take information we have on Jay, and we put all this information in and we say, Okay, here’s the ad or here’s the product. Let’s make this as absolutely relevant and engaging to Jay as possible, possible. Oh, yeah. And it will do it. It can do that now, can it do that instantly with an audience of a million? You know? All right, that’s where it starts to get right now. It does it based still on like persona So Jay and others like Jay, yeah, right. But the belief is that because of the computing power, at some point, it’ll be able to do it at a real personalized level, which is pretty amazing. That is pretty amazing. It is amazing. Yeah, like, that’s that’s scary and amazing. But would, would,
Jay Whetter 36:10
would we still need a think shift for that? Just chat, GPT writing.
Jay Whetter 36:22
I’m just using that as one example that
David Lazarenko 36:26
starts with I’m the nerd
Speaker 3 36:32
in the room. Still relevant. Wow, you can ask the same question about journalism.
Jay Whetter 36:39
I guess my point is that everything seems to be in limbo right now, job wise, and, yeah, yeah,
David Lazarenko 36:46
it hey, I’d be lying if I said like the question. So I think that there you’re going to have the ability for to do it now. I still think that humans can help to determine what is right and what is wrong like, And so figuring out whether you should do it or shouldn’t do it, and whether you should do a b and c, or just a and b, or whatever it is like, there’s, there’s a lot of stuff that we still need to guide the human in the loop, so to speak.
Jay Whetter 37:19
And I think that’s where you and your expertise? Well, I was talking about this with my brother, my sister in law. I love this a couple days ago about about backlash against AI and and, can it fake? Authenticity? Probably someday, but, but that just elevates the value of a real conversation, yeah? And then it’s almost like, I don’t even, I don’t see ads now. I mean, I’m going to be less interested in the future, yeah? Because I just feel like, Yeah, I’m just, I’m being manipulated because they know my algorithm or whatever, and so I’ve just, I’m going to tune it out. But if you tell me something is good, then I’m more interested.
Toban Dyck 38:09
I think, I think we assume, like we correct me if I’m wrong, it’s all up for discussion. We assume AI is on a certain these trends are on a certain trajectory that is kind of anti connection, or anti like people talking to people. But I don’t think that’s true. I mean, and this is just me talking here, I have no idea, but I’m guessing that AI will stay in the picture, but there will be a strong desire, I would say, very, very soon, for more people to want actual connection to other people and to products and to, like, tactile things. But that does not mean necessarily that the trend is then falling on the on the AI side. I think it’s just going to change. Yeah, that’s, that’s my take. So I think for places like think shift, I think there’s always going to be a place to chat with David about strategy, because that will always be a fun conversation and a meaningful one in ways that I don’t think any model, any tech, will be able to replicate. That’s my guess.
David Lazarenko 39:12
What do you think? Yeah, I like so I do think
David Lazarenko 39:20
the way that I look at it is, AI is going to it is going to eliminate low value efforts, things that, and we’ve seen this. So I use the example of like when, when Microsoft Word came out and it had spell and grammar check. It was great. It took out a low value effort of like, oh, I don’t want to have to spell and grammar check my my Word document. It was a fantastic addition to our lives, because it was like, it took it took out a low value effort in our minds. Now we still have to do some final edits to it, but it did a lot of that lifting for us. Mm. I think that AI will continue to do that is going to take out things that are deemed as, is this creating real value to the final effort, or is this just removing redundancy, and, you know, things that aren’t any value. It’s also going to help us elevate the value of the high value tasks like so as a strategist, it can help me think through multiple iterations of something. It can help me explore multiple iterations of it. It can help me even grab context from another example to bring in. It can do all these things that that help me guide someone in strategy. But it’s not doing the strategy. It can help with all that, but, yeah, like, so that’s where I see it, I think for sure. And that again, but then you hear on the you know, that artificial general intelligence will come in and it’ll be able to do all of that. I don’t know if that’s going to be the case. Like, yeah,
Toban Dyck 41:00
but interesting, interesting kind of parallel, possibly, is the comic book, one where you have, like, you have multiple you’re kind of a layered approach to a communication, right? So you have the words, you have the visual, you have everything else that’s going on. And I think faith, like person to person communication is a bit like that, right? Like you, you might be able to you say the exact same thing. You could even read what a what a chat GPT gave you in terms of strategy. But that’s not the only thing happening at that moment, that person is also looking at you. You’re also interacting on a variety of levels, right? So you, I mean, is it, you know, I’m learning this as I’m talking, right? Yeah, it’s an interesting approach, right? Because it’s not just, it’s, there’s more going on.
David Lazarenko 41:45
Absolutely, there is, yeah, there’s something that I haven’t seen. Like, it can do a lot of things, and it’s a fantastic tool. And one of the words that I use is, like, cleverness. I don’t find it’s really good at cleverness. Yeah, it’s a good one. It’s a good word. Yeah, cleverness is just one of those things where, and I’m sure you’ve seen it as writers, is that like, just, oh boy, the way that they captured that was so clever, yeah, like something, and I think it’s a mix of, it’s just, it’s not intuitive. It was like someone was able just to think of it and turn it on its head a little bit, and it just made it all the more different. It’s not, I think it’s still much too linear. It’s like, if it’s if you got a B and C, your probably best path is go to D, you know, it’s like. So I think that’s part of it.
Jay Whetter 42:38
So, I mean, yeah, recalling ads, and I’ve had a lot of time to think,
Toban Dyck 42:51
I just think of cleverness.
Jay Whetter 42:54
Yeah, I mean, you might consider this to be clever, but when you say clever, it struck me. So there’s the Subaru ad where the Subarus are like, dogs at a dog park, yeah, and then the parents or the owners are like, sitting there watching their watching their Subarus drive around. Could AI come up maybe, I mean, but I just think that’s kind of clever at it, and it was obviously memorable, because it’s one of those ads that eventually I do recall. But yeah, and so, like, how do we bring this back to agriculture extension? Like, are there things that that you’ve learned in your career of market? So this is what I’ve said with to my canola Council colleagues, often, who are in agronomy, back when I had a bunch of colleagues, but I said, like, we need to think of agronomy extension, like marketing, and I actually didn’t know how to do it. We needed to bring you in. But, I mean, I just like, so how to like from your marketing perspective, like, how do you take a concept of, like, how to control a disease, a pest, disease, or an insect, or fertilizer rates? How do you take a marketing approach to extension.
David Lazarenko 44:03
So I would say, I think I mentioned this, like, this idea of storytelling. So, and I don’t say storytelling as in, like, oh, you know, it’s like, Goldilocks. It’s like, you’re not making something up, but you’re, it’s how you’re delivering it. So I think of when you were talking about that, I thought of Neil deGrasse Tyson right now, talks about really complex scientific things, but he’s a really good storyteller. He uses analogies, he uses different tools to tell a story, to make it make sense to anyone. Yeah, and, and, I think it’s the same thing, like when we when we talk to farmers and growers and whoever else it might be, we are talking about some complex agronomic, scientific stuff. It doesn’t mean that we have to just talk about it like it’s in a textbook. And I think that’s where marketing could come in market. Getting learned that we had to stand out. We had to tell a good story. We just, we just said, Hey, we’re, we’re this, this and this. It’s just like features and benefits. It’s not enough. Yeah, we had to have some kind of hook. And so I think that that’s for extension, like there’s a good story to be told, or a good way to tell it in more of a story form. Where that could, I think that could help immensely. I think you see that for sure in the agronomic space, in the ag tech space, another one for sure, where, again, I think we’re seeing adoption rates aren’t as as as much as they should be, or as frequent as they should be. I think that’s another area where we could actually, if we told a better story, maybe we’d see better adoption.
Jay Whetter 45:43
Yeah, I just got an email this morning about a guy. It was a forwarded email. But anyway, it doesn’t matter, but complaining that farmers weren’t adopting variable rate or section control fast enough, I think, well, because you haven’t, just as you’re talking, I’m saying, you know, it’s because that you haven’t told a compelling enough story about, yeah, why this is going to save you money or make you more profits or make you more efficient or like you, yeah. I mean, you need to connect in that way.
David Lazarenko 46:13
There was finally for me. So biologicals lived in this space of like, boy, they’re just not telling a good story. So many went like biologicals have been around for a long time. Yeah, and the and I think it that category did itself a disservice, because it went directly to trying to sell the product way too quickly. It did not tell a story as to why that whole category mattered. It just talked about why it was great, and why it was going to be great, and all this stuff. And it just missed the story. And so then it went to what it could it was like, our product will do this, our product do this, do this. And so right back to features and benefits, sometimes with fancy imagery and all this stuff that we think works. When someone finally told me the story of there are threats at play now that conventional chemistry can’t help with threats like abiotic stress that we like a herbicide or a fungicide or an insecticide or fertilizer, they can’t solve we can’t throw these existing tools at it, and we now need some new tools to help with those. That was finally for me, it was like, Okay, wait a minute. Now there’s a bit of a story. I understand why this world is existing, and then lead me into it. I think it’s the same thing with like, like you said, with some of the Ag technology. We didn’t tell the story yet. Yeah, a variable rate. Well enough. We just told you, Hey, we got all this data. Let’s look at what we could do with it now. And it’s like, that’s just going to the cell.
Toban Dyck 47:50
Yeah, yeah, no, I agree. Any any kind of talk on or not talk, but like, medium plays a role too when you talk about story, yes, yeah. What do you what are your thoughts on, on that like, and how did how to, how to tell it? We you hear, you hear tell story often, like, everyone’s got to tell their story, and, AG, has to tell stories. What’s your take on, how we should think about the mediums?
David Lazarenko 48:16
And so I think that in general, like when I think of mediums, I think of the different delivery mechanisms and the ones available. Authenticity is different depending on the medium it comes through. And so if you’re advertising something, there’s always going to be a perception that that that story is biased. It might not be real, right? It’s a sell, you know? Yeah, so if you’re paying for it, if you’re paying to tell your story, it might not be true. This was, I think, why kind of content mean what you guys are doing. It came so big because it was like, I’m we’re going to give this information away for free. It’s not a sell and and within the content, we’re not going to even talk about our product at all. Yeah, I think that because we started to see, okay, that owned media, as we call it, had a higher level of credibility. Even beyond that is then earned media, if someone else tells my story, it’s not even me saying it now, yeah, yeah, that’s even higher in credibility. And so I think that those are the ways that like and I do think that’s probably why stories are also really important. Is because if I could still tell a really good story that Jay can remember and he really likes, it’s very good chance he’ll tell it again. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. And then that opportunity for someone else to share, it becomes even heightened.
Toban Dyck 49:45
So, yeah, no, it’s true. I know we’ve, you know, we think about, like, media training. And a lot of these boards for these associations want media training, right? And one of the kind of thoughts that I’ve had, I think Jay and I talked about that, instead of kind of a traditional approach. Of like CTV or CBC coming to your yard with a camera. It’s more teaching the growers how to be kind of content producers or storytellers of their own. Yeah, so that at some point they have a good LinkedIn post or Instagram post that tells a good story. CBC might come then, because, you know they like you’re saying now, like it’s gonna, it’s gonna get that kind of kind of attraction. So it’s gonna be less about them coming to your yard because of a crisis, but more, you know, something they can control. Yeah, go ahead.
Jay Whetter 50:33
I just, I want to talk to you about strategic planning and the creative creativity within that. I think it’ll be fun. But before we get there, so that, you know, there’s search engine obviously, you know, search engine optimization, yes, so writing content for Google so the Google can understand it. Now there’s, there’s not certain. It’s not SEO, but it’s something else that I just saw for chat, GPT or these large SEMrush stuff, yes. So is that. So all of these companies, these associations that Toban was talking about, who have these websites set up like, is this, this chat GPT version of SEO, a key step to do now? So it
David Lazarenko 51:18
will be it. So there’s a there’s a few things that are going to be for sures in the area. So first off is your, your website is going to need to be aI friendly. And what I mean by that is there’s some websites out there that will have anti bot restrictions on it where AI, or like a like a chat GPT can’t scroll it, and if it can’t scroll it, then it can’t look at it, whether it’s an authority or not. It can’t pull it in as a contextual like quote or link or anything like it’s, that’s a that’s, that’s not great. So you won’t show up if it can’t search you right now, and this is at least my opinion, there is no perfect method to show up in an AI. So what it basically means is, most people, a lot of people now, are searching through AI versus search engines. Even if they are searching through a search engine, it’s being done through AI and with search engines, there used to be fairly set rules. Google actually used to, like, back in the day, release what they their rules were for? Yeah, I remember that they used to say, Listen, we are going to give greater credibility to this. If you show up this way, then your chances of showing up in search, unpaid search, are increased, and there is no perfect tool. So there’s a lot of organizations and things that are saying that are like it is not known yet. How are you going to show up in a chat? GPT response to something.
Jay Whetter 53:03
So I just heard that like it just your sentences have to be quite clear in what they’re trying to tell you. And actually, that’s not a bad exercise. Yeah. So, so I was going back through some of the content I’d written online for the canola Council. I’m thinking, yeah, no, that’s I wrote that. Go back and read it five years later. Like, No, I actually don’t know what I’m trying to say. So then you go back and like, if I don’t know I wrote myself, like, farmers aren’t gonna know, yeah, and chat GPT is definitely not gonna know. So some self editing is definitely in order. It’s just gonna take some time. Yeah, yeah, no, no. You answer that because I wanted to ask David about the strategic planning, which I love.
Toban Dyck 53:48
Is there, like, a marketing plan or advertisement or just something that you would love to create in, AG, but haven’t had the opportunity to, like, just this kind of, like, this dream kind of project.
David Lazarenko 54:07
Yeah, two things. So, so, so one of them, and we’re starting to move there. And I alluded to to amazon
Toban Dyck 54:16
before. Oh yeah, that experience, yeah,
David Lazarenko 54:20
I there should be ratings, five star ratings on every product in agriculture, and there should just be a so what people, a lot of people don’t know we worked on a number of E commerce sites and and the site itself doesn’t necessarily capture the ratings. There are ratings aggregators, and then you buy, like an API, and then it feeds that into the website. But someone out there should capture grower ratings on all products, yeah, and whether you’re on a whatever website it is, you can see now contextually relevant rating of that product. Product by the audience. I think that that is critical, like this is we talk about, like, the credibility of that. I think that that should exist in agriculture. And I think that is, I think we’re scared of it, because it’s like, well, what if it doesn’t get rated, well, trolls or whatever, exactly. Yeah, it’s of benefit to the user. The grower would see benefit. Farm emergency benefit. I think that that’s, that’s critical.
Toban Dyck 55:24
That’s a, that’s a really good one. Yeah, the other
David Lazarenko 55:27
one that I’ve always wanted to do, and tried it, we’ve done it every little bit is, is to, I say, own, a own, a trade show by not, but not be there. So, so, so there’s the idea of like, and then we hear this all the time about, oh, it’s so expensive to buy a booth at a trade show, the cost we have to show up, bring our staff, do all this stuff, and it’s no one’s no one stands out at the show and all this stuff and And my belief is that if you’re really clever with digital marketing, And even with the hotels around the trade show and the coffee shops and whatever it is, you could have the greatest presence at a trade show, like egg days or whatever it is, and not actually have a booth and be the most memorable brand, yeah, in that trade show that you didn’t even have a booth because everyone’s like, oh my goodness, yeah, did you
56:21
wear a huge pink top? Whatever it is?
Toban Dyck 56:23
Yeah, like the neighboring hotel, exactly. That’s super that’s clever,
David Lazarenko 56:29
something that you can own the experience without being at the experience. That’s another one. I wish I could. We haven’t. We haven’t done it fully, but I’d love to do that like you guys could. Yeah, we, we’ve done like, again, experiences round trade shows and food trucks, and we did a limo service one time. Oh, yeah, really well, but yeah, that was like, I think just going full out, it’s the risk of not being there that that that clients usually gulp
Jay Whetter 56:54
out of you guys are both Manitobans. Have you done, like, the meat shoulder thing at socials? So you take the salami and, like, put it like, hey, Toban, you put a salami on your shoulder. And so Toban is walking around the whole day. I’ve never done it.
Speaker 3 57:12
A little sticker of for your brand. You could walk around egg days and, like, meat shoulder everyone. Oh, my God. Stickers to do that you
David Lazarenko 57:22
could probably now do it on a bologna slice, like a QR show
Speaker 1 57:30
an engraved bologna. Yeah, some good old Manitoba.
David Lazarenko 57:36
Yeah, Schneider’s the five star rating,
Jay Whetter 57:38
though I love so we’re at canola week last week, and I was moderating a panel on weed control. Yeah, and someone says something, and it was just so obvious, but it is something that I’d never thought about. But farmers think like, we actually have never seen head to head trials on herbicides. They have, they have all their seed, like, we have a row of these. Are these varieties like, but they don’t know how one actually in in the same field, how one herbicide performs against the other, yeah?
David Lazarenko 58:10
Do a side by side of Yeah. This is Yeah, Brand X, yeah, exactly, yeah.
Jay Whetter 58:16
And, but that’s it’s so important, because we control, and you want, you want efficient weed control so you don’t have to go back over and over. You’re not contributing the seed bank, and we’ve got kind of runaway herbicide resistant weeds right now. Yeah. So if a farmer could say, You know what, I need to control, group one, group two, group four, resistant Wild Oats, what product should I use? Here’s some strip trials, or whatever, or a five star rating, yeah, like it, and then with, with the comment options where it would say, okay, yeah, this worked really well in this scenario or in it, but and maybe, like I heard, Reddit is good for for that kind of i i have read it on my phone, never look at it, but I think that that kind of community as a social media might Be I agree to use, yeah,
David Lazarenko 59:01
yeah, and I follow it now Reddit. Reddit has become a fantastic place to gain insights, to on farmers and what they’re actually thinking discussing like, I think it’s there was a time where, like, chat sites and that were just, they were, it was like control Central. You could still get into those doob scrolls of on that, but there is a lot of, like, great advice, and just real authentic use cases and scenarios being like, I, you know what? Jay, I don’t know. I tried this. Seemed to work really well on my farm. I gave it a shot. I did this one, I tried this other one, and maybe that’s what might help you. Like that That, to me, is that, to me, calls out that the audience wants that. Yeah, they’re seeking it. So why not? Why not help them get that you side to side. So, like, I know our clients are doing them, they’ll do, of course, comparatives of years. One and the other, yeah, but they’ll put them out with, like, product advertising and product sell sheets. And so, of course, it looks like it’s biased now, right? Yeah, hey, here’s, here’s one treated with our competitors, you know, and here’s ours. And so, like, something that is more more central, like, like, you see, like with, especially with seed trials, like, there’s lots of unbiased seed trials out there that do it. It’d be very interesting, yeah, it would be Yeah, and
Jay Whetter 1:00:25
then to go in and see, okay, well, look at all these weeds here versus this. Yeah. I mean, it was so be it’d be so visual. I think it would be more, it would be more visual than even a seed trial, because they often like, oh, a very Yeah. You could tell me there’s a difference, but I can’t really see a difference, yeah, until you do the
David Lazarenko 1:00:40
final I can’t tell Yeah, and then you can tell me the yield, but like, I can’t tell if it’s Yeah. Okay.
Jay Whetter 1:00:46
Have you got, have you got five minutes to talk about strategic planning?
Toban Dyck 1:00:50
Is in the creativity. What’s so exciting for
Jay Whetter 1:00:58
everything, every everything, is strategic planning? Sure, I just like that. I think it’s even if you talk about an extension or communications plan, yeah. And I just think, I think maybe, what can we do in five minutes? I think what you could do is remind someone like, just what, what are the steps in a strategic plan, and why is it important? And I know we could have, we could have done multi podcast just on that topic, and we just blew through this time. I can’t believe it’s near the end. But anyway, have you? Have you got some takeaway thoughts on that?
David Lazarenko 1:01:30
David, absolutely, absolutely and, and I could talk for way more than five minutes. I’ll try to go really, really quick The first one is, is, is, my approach has always been that that you have to decouple those two words, strategic and plan. Strategy and plan aren’t the same thing. Strategy is the set of decisions you’re going to make to prioritize and create a finite set of things you’re going to do. Plan is, then how you’re going to do those things. Those are the things you’re going to do. Strategy, therefore, is much more important, because especially in our world, there are endless things you can do. If we think of extension communication, there are millions of ways you can talk to farmers strategy is, is, is deciding how, when, where, like, really locking in on. I’m going to do it this way. We’re going to do it this way, where this is even more important. We’re not going to do this right, right? It is what you’re going to say as much as what you’re going to say yes to. It’s what you’re going to it’s what you’re going to say no to. And the no list should be the no list should be huge. It should because, and that’s the heart back to the very beginning. Why is it so hard? Because it’s so hard to say no to things, especially if they all have merit to a certain extent, right? And so strategy is choosing the path out of multiple decisions that all have relatively equal merit. That’s why it’s hard. The plan is, then, okay, we’ve made those decisions. How are we going to make it work? And that that is also we’re creative. And this is why creativity comes in, because creativity can come in and say, This is why we can make this path have more merit or elevated over this path. This is how we can really, how we could use one thing and turn it into, like, the value of four, you know, I think that those are, you know, using the the idea I threw out about the trade show. So we’re going to do trade shows. We’re just not going to do trade shows, right? And because we don’t have all the cost involved in showing up, we can actually strategically eliminate some of the cost, because we’re going to show up differently the creative side of it, so
1:03:55
you can have, yeah, I mean, I’m
Jay Whetter 1:03:58
just thinking, like, even if you bought 15 people coffee in a day. I mean, that’s a cost, but it’s not the cost of going to a booth, exactly. Yeah. And then if you can connect with, I mean, you know the value of like, the pass along idea, if you connect with the right 15 people, especially if you’re in a public place and they see you having coffee with this person. I don’t know how does like, there’s creative ways to get your message across. There are, there’s
David Lazarenko 1:04:24
like, and I think that’s the opportunity. Is, if you can, if you could narrow the list of things you are going to do, then you can increase the amount of time you spend on figuring out creatively how you’re going to do, yeah, when you’ve got 100 things to do, it’s hard to look at every 100 of the items and get creative with all of them. And so, yeah, yeah. Have you found
Toban Dyck 1:04:47
that’s gotten like, easier over time? Like I could imagine when things shift was was younger. It would have been like, as, I think, even myself, you know, young company. It’s just like, it’s so hard to say no to. Things. If you think of a strategy and for a client, you just want to say yes to everything you want it. You want the strategy to encompass everything that they’re all their dreams and hopes, but to be able to to limit it and to say no to a bunch of things,
David Lazarenko 1:05:12
it’s easier on one side and much more difficult on another. So first off, I think it’s easier now knowing like, yeah, having kind of grown up in strategy and understanding it to be able to walk them through that much more difficult, because when I first got into communications and marketing and agriculture, there was five to 10 different channels to choose from. There wasn’t hundreds and 1000s of different things we could do. It was a limited set. Like, yeah, there weren’t a whole bunch of different ways to go about engaging the farmer audience, because there weren’t a there weren’t a million ways to engage them, right? So you had a very concise and defined set. Now that’s completely changed. So it’s much harder, because there is so many different ways, yeah, different things you could do, yeah, yeah,
Toban Dyck 1:06:07
yeah. I believe that for sure.
Jay Whetter 1:06:10
David, when you were driving out here in the snowstorm, yeah,
David Lazarenko 1:06:16
looking for the billboard, I couldn’t see it, but
Jay Whetter 1:06:22
was there something that, I mean, when you agree to do the podcast, even, like, you know, I want to tell Toban and Jay and their audience about this, like, was, what did you have something that you really wanted to say that we haven’t got around to talking about?
David Lazarenko 1:06:37
No, you know, I think the part that I’ve just thought about so much is I really do feel like so farmers, growers, they do so much, they they work so hard, to do so much for not just us, but for the world and and if we as communicators And extensionists, can make their lives easier if we can, if we could tell a better story, or tell a story better, like, it’s on us. This is, this is our job for them, right, to pay it forward to them, to make it easier for them. And I think that’s the big one. Is, like, that’s what’s been trying to kind of keep me going. Is like, no what? How can I really support these guys, like, even though I’m a marketer of products,
Toban Dyck 1:07:24
yeah, well, well put,
Jay Whetter 1:07:26
well, I think it just in this whole, I mean, we, we’ve kind of, I am on an empathy kick, I guess you could say, inspired by one of our previous guests, because I was just dumping out a grand like, extension material, extension material, extension material, not really trying to connect on a human level. But then, then you think of the farmer’s perspective, where they’re just bombarded. Everyone wants them to do something or buy something new. They look and there’s like machinery is more expensive, margins are narrower, and you’re saying, Okay, let’s just take a breath. Yeah? Like you’re, you’re doing enough, yeah, yeah, okay, and maybe there’s a couple little tweaks here and there, but, you know, let’s just, let’s tone it down. Tone down the change.
David Lazarenko 1:08:11
Quick little thing. And this was, this was something that we found really funny that you say that we were doing some research into, into marketing, messaging and in general in the in the space. And what we found was, I don’t want to say it was fear mongering, but whether it was an ad or column or whatever it was, it was all negative. It was all about the challenges you need to solve the problem in your field, right? Weed? Yeah. And I think of the mindset of the farmer, the grower. They know, they know how challenging the job is. Do they really want this whole outside source just telling them more about like, like, like, how down would that make you? Yeah. And so I just it was like, for us, it was like, there’s an opportunity to tell this story in a more positive light. There’s got to be, yeah,
Toban Dyck 1:09:09
yeah. Welcome,
1:09:11
yeah. So, I mean, I like that, yeah, that’s a good idea for another great billboard. Yeah. I just thought that I know we gotta wrap up anyways, but
Toban Dyck 1:09:23
the whole idea of like, you know, not telling pharma these things because they know them already, right? You don’t need to tell them about their challenges because they know them and how, like, again, as communicators, it’s like trusting that your audience knows these things, and you don’t need to tell them like, you don’t need to tell them that they know it. And like to really, yeah, it’s a hard thing. Like, I find myself in those positions often where you know No, you got to say it, because they might not know it, and it’s like, no, they they know it. You know. They get it. They know it. They know their their own challenge
David Lazarenko 1:09:55
more than we do,
1:09:57
yeah, yeah, yeah,
Toban Dyck 1:09:58
no, I think that’s a. That’s a really strong point for sure.
Jay Whetter 1:10:02
Yeah, thanks for coming out.
David Lazarenko 1:10:04
It was my pleasure. This was awesome. Really. I so thoroughly enjoyed this. This was a lot of fun.
Toban Dyck 1:10:10
And, like, the in person thing is just always just so much better, like we would not, I mean, this would have been a great conversation, you know, over zoom, but not, not the same.
David Lazarenko 1:10:19
Well, we’ll see like, we’ll see what the weather looks like out there. Yeah, might have overnight. We’ll make the coffee, open up the
Toban Dyck 1:10:35
little pack
1:10:38
instant coffee. It’s great
Toban Dyck 1:10:41
anyway, I’m probably not even gonna tell my wife that you drink instant coffee. I don’t think she’ll like that. Like, don’t invite him back in this house. Yeah, he’s dead. I know she’s here. He’s dead to me, alrighty, this was really this was awesome. Thank you so much. Do
Jay Whetter 1:11:03
Hey there, listeners. If you’re enjoying the conversations here on the extensionist, you will probably love to get our newsletter.
Toban Dyck 1:11:10
Yeah, it’s the best way to stay connected with us, with Jay and myself. Yours truly, I’m excited about the newsletter, to be honest with you, because I think, well, so many of our guests have sorry. Why are you excited? They say that differently. So many of our guests are. They say so many things of interest, right? And I feel like the newsletter be a great will be a great way to share that with our
Speaker 1 1:11:36
quick take home, yeah? Summaries, yeah, absolutely, one liner, absolutely, absolutely.
Toban Dyck 1:11:41
I think about each each guest, we could probably write a whole bunch of articles from each of our guests, right? So to give our our newsletter subscribers, like summaries of, you know, the key takeaways of these things, plus, plus information on upcoming guests. All they got to do, all listeners have to do is go to the extension is.com and follow the prompts to sign up. I think it’ll be, I think it’ll be great.
Jay Whetter 1:12:08
I had fun with David.
Toban Dyck 1:12:10
Yeah, no, it was, it was great. It was such a Yeah, so interesting perspective, and a great guy to chat
Jay Whetter 1:12:18
with, and we’re teasing each other a little bit, but I actually don’t think he’s a nerd. Well, I guess, or I have actually a high respect for,
Toban Dyck 1:12:25
yeah, I think, I think it’s, I think it’s an term endearment, for sure, in that, in that context, and in
Jay Whetter 1:12:30
fact, that the comic book thing really kind of hit home for me in that that sending a message or telling a story in so few words, so you’re it’s facial expressions, it’s action, and then it’s toned down on the words. And I think there’s a lot we could learn in communication with a few of those key tips from from comic books.
Toban Dyck 1:12:55
Yeah, I like that too. Like, I like that whole idea of looking at I guess there’s just, there’s more going on. And I think, think about this in terms of the conferences that we go to, and the value of those face to face encounters, and we just say, oh, yeah, it was, you know, so much more value in in person meetings or in person, blah, blah, blah, but to really kind of, what is it? What is that value? What’s the like? What are we saying when we say that, and it’s Yeah, still, I haven’t fully, kind of fleshed that out, but the idea that it’s not just the words we’re saying to each other, because those could be via text or email or whatever. It’s everything. It’s the Yeah, like you said, the facial expressions, the but what is that? Like you’re taking in something, and that has meaning too, right, right? So, yeah, I don’t know, like, there’s,
Jay Whetter 1:13:45
but you said, you said this even when we were planning our training sessions. Is that, like, I would think about the word, it’s about the article that matters, and you’re like, No, Jay, it’s the actually, it’s the whole package. It’s the visual. And then, and then this comic book thing, kind of just like, emphasize that, yeah, they can, to me, like, the the value in a whole package, like a multi sensory, you know, not to say you’re smelling anything or, yeah,
Toban Dyck 1:14:11
but that’s like, that is being talked about now, like that, that, that, I mean, the old factory, or whatever, you know, sensation, but already, yeah, right. For D, I’ve heard about it. Yeah, no, it’s, it’s, yeah, but it is, it is it is fascinating. Like, yeah, we’ve, we’ve taken these mediums, like, you know, we’ve, you know, articles and video, and we’ve, like, separated them in a way that probably doesn’t fit with reality, right? Like, that’s not how they are, right? An article, when you read it, isn’t just words, like, because that can. Be auditory too. There is the experience of reading. There is the, yeah, like the visuals of blocks of text, like small ones versus big ones. There’s long sentences versus small. You know, there’s lots going on that isn’t just, isn’t just encapsulated by reading, right? And so when we we are, I don’t know it’s, it’s an interesting. It’s, it’s intriguing. I find that very fascinating. And I think for him, it’s really, he’s a great person to talk to. He’s very, he’s very clear ideas and very obviously, very creative and very, I think very must be, this must be very exciting for him to be in the world that he’s in where he can be like, especially as a comic book lover, right? And there’s an appetite for that now, so he can really, kind of, yeah, we fly.
Jay Whetter 1:15:51
We talked in a recent podcast about a book as an extension tool, how to how to grow coffee in Hawaii, right? Right? I think, like a graphic novel, can even say graphic, but a graphic novel for extension information, I don’t know, I kind of think that’d be fun. It makes me think of something dilgeet might think of, yeah, dilge bar is that, like you could do a skit, you could do a game, yeah, it could. Or you could do a graphic novel, I
Toban Dyck 1:16:24
think for sure. Why? Yeah, why not? Right? Yeah. I mean, and then I know you want to talk about strategy, and I think it’s that’s at first, I was like, I mean, I wasn’t uninterested in talking about strategy, but I wasn’t like, you know, wondering where you’re going to go with it, yeah, no.
Jay Whetter 1:16:42
And there’s not much really more to say. I kind of just the way David described it, does two separate things. So you get your strategy, and then they got your planning, and the strategy comes first, and it’s like, what do you want to say yes to? Yeah. More importantly, what’s the very long list of things you’re going to say no to what?
Toban Dyck 1:17:01
Yeah, I actually was going to guess that he was going to differentiate between strat and plan, because you said strat plan. Oh, yeah, okay. And he never said it. He just said strategy, yeah. And you said strategy, if I’m like that, that’s not the same. And so in these and he then he recognized that
Jay Whetter 1:17:22
strat plan is one thing. Strategic planning has two separate components, yeah.
Toban Dyck 1:17:27
Then he never said he does strategic planning. He said he likes strategy, yeah, yeah. It just registered as different, but, and I like the way he talked about strategy a lot in terms of, like, that long list of things you don’t do, and that’s very selective list of things you do do. Yeah, right. And that’s
Jay Whetter 1:17:48
great exercise, though. I mean, it takes time, but it’s worth doing. Yeah? And then then, once you’ve identified those three or five things you want to do, then what’s the plan see? How do you
1:18:01
Yeah, no, I yeah, anyway,
Toban Dyck 1:18:05
like, yeah, honored that he did it, that he came out and yeah, came out to the farm and did this. This was, this was fun.
Jay Whetter 1:18:14
We are the extensionists.
Toban Dyck 1:18:16
I’m Jay wetter and I’m Toban Dyck.
Jay Whetter 1:18:18
Till next time this has been a burr forest group.
Toban Dyck 1:18:22
Production. We also want to thank the people working behind the scenes to make this podcast happen. Abby wall is our producer and editor. Ashley Robinson is our coordinator, and Michelle Holden is our designer. You