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The First Food Impact Summit

Helping Hormel Foods imagine a transparent, secure, sustainable food system for the future through collaboration.

Client
Hormel Foods
Capabilities
Strategic Narrative, Business Strategy, Content Creation, Design

The Challenge

In 2019, Attention Span worked in collaboration with Hormel Foods and Harvard Dining Services to create the Small Change, Big Impact Food Summit; a 2-day summit bringing together over 125 of the top minds in the food industry, from academia, food service, food producers and non-profits, to discuss the changes we can make that will have sweeping effects on our global food system. Panels included “Innovation in Agriculture,” “Finding Food Security,” and “The Future of Food.”

We were involved in nearly every aspect of the summit; handling the design and branding elements, compiling the invited guest list, selecting panel speakers and topics, creating and running all social media accounts wand email campaigns, and overseeing all post-summit content creation and communication with attendees and speakers. On-site at the summit we recorded interviews with panelists for post-conference content (both stories and podcasts), while also providing general event support.

Goals

Improving the food system + Thought leadership

The post event coverage plan, created a content strategy that allowed the client to share the summit with a much larger audience. The evergreen content included podcast recordings with panelists, sizzle reels for social media, and full panel recordings for those unable to attend in-person.

Execution

Primary Tactics

  1. Building The Food Impact Summit website, along with creating new social accounts and engaging with followers.
  2. Delivering post-summit content to keep the conversation on our food system going, which included podcast recordings with panelists, sizzle reels for social media, and full panel videos for those unable to attend.
  3. Creating the summit branding and design system, including the logo, physical signage, digital screens and various other design elements in order to give the conference a cohesive, forward-thinking feel.

Summit Topics

Jim Snee, President, CEO of Hormel Foods giving the keynote speech at the 2019 Small Change Big Impact Food Summit at Harvard University.

Results

Media Relations Successes

Part of the puzzle with a conference like this is how to make sure the captivating and productive conversations that are happening inside make it out to the rest of the world. We created several press releases for Hormel Foods to use, and extended invitations to many media members, both local and national. Our efforts paid off, as the summit was covered by publications all over the country.

The most notable included:

Hormel, Harvard Team Up To Change Minds About ‘Big Food’
– Forbes

Tackling tough topics at Small Change, Big Impact Food Summit at Harvard
– The Boston Globe

Accomplishments

One of the biggest highlights from the summit was the Our Food Journey™ Small Change Big Impact Challenge, which gave some of the bright young minds in the food industry an opportunity to win funding for their projects or businesses. Anyone with an exciting idea for improving our food system was encouraged to apply, and after dozens of applicants the field was whittled down to 10 finalists. These finalists presented their ideas to a panel of judges on the first night of the summit with finalists coming from all over the country.

All told, at the end of the night a total $16,000 was awarded to four finalists, with many ongoing relationships being formed amongst those finalists who weren’t awarded grants. The challenge had a direct effect on our food system by providing funding for innovative ideas and giving young minds the grants needed to pursue them further.

Campaign Metrics

With such an esteemed lineup of guests and speakers, the captured content was used to inspire partners and internal teams.

  • 125+

    Guests in attendance

  • 30+

    Videos produced for social media and the summit website

  • 39

    Panelists representing some of the top organizations in the food industry

A variety of Small Change Big Impact Food Summit print collateral and merch for the 2019 summit.