CONTENTS

Priorities for the First Decade of the 21st Century: NEC-63

NEC-63 Spring 1999 Abstracts

Editor's Notes

Next Meeting

NEC-63 2000 Spring Meeting: April 2-4, 2000 Export Promotion: Challanges and Opportunities Fall Meeting: October 2-3, 2000 at the New Product Innovations Center

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Priorities for the First Decade of the Twenty-First Century:
NEC-63

by John Nichols and Olan Forker

The Research Committee on Commodity Promotion (NEC-63) was first established in 1985. Papers presented at the NEC-63 semiannual meetings are available in proceedings and as published work elsewhere. In 1990, the Committee established an Agenda for the 1990s. which provided guidance for activities during the last decade.

Much has been accomplished since these priorities were established. The National Institute for Commodity Promotion Research and Evaluation (NICPRE), funded through the U.S. Congress, was established at Cornell University. Progress has been made in developing more comprehensive models for evaluation of effectiveness. Much debate has been stimulated regarding the appropriate approach to defining and calculating measures of returns to checkoff funded promotion programs. Data, though still a seriously limiting factor, have been somewhat improved through the efforts of NEC-63, NICPRE and several commodity promotion organizations.

Nonetheless, there are many reasons to examine the directions and priorities of our research and evaluation efforts. Major changes include rapid structural reorganization underway in many agro-food chains, globalization of the economy, increasing power of information technology and database management, and new public policy mandates for evaluation. These forces, plus the progress made in research and industry applications suggest changes that should affect the way we pose research and evaluation questions, which questions are important, and how impacts of checkoff programs will be felt.

The members of the Committee have identified items that should be on the agenda for the first decade of the next century (see below). While many of the topics are based on themes of the last decade, the underlying motivations, purposes and methods have evolved substantially.

Improve the quality and scope of economic analysis both by academic and industry analysts.

• Improve econometric models to more effectively analyze the economic impact of generic programs on aggregate demand.
• Encourage expanded use and analysis of the many options open to program managers - allocation of funds across program activities, spatial and temporal allocations, selection of campaign types and messages, timing and duration of campaigns, brand vs. generic, domestic vs. international, etc. Explore some non-econometric models for analysis of the economic impact.
• Encourage improvement of the quality of public data.
• Develop strong working relationships between practitioners and researchers so that data can be shared effectively.
• Develop ways to include in the analyses consideration of the implications of structural changes in the consumer market and in the industry production and distribution systems, including non-competitive market situations.
• Include the analysis of the generic promotion of intermediate goods and services and the economic impact of promoting processes, technologies and product introductions at the intermediate level. policy. Research in this area should focus on the economic and public interest aspects of this legislation. Such research could justify continued existence or point out ways to increase effectiveness.
• Develop the appropriate theoretical base for the economic analysis of generic promotion activities.

Encourage and advise Checkoff Organizations and other agencies to develop better data bases.

• Advise organizations to develop and maintain data bases that will more effectively enable the conduct of economic analysis of all program activities.
• Develop ways to more effectively match theory to data availability.

Encourage innovative research that addresses important public policy issues relative to domestic and export promotion.

• Most generic promotion programs exist because of federal or state enabling legislation. This places these programs in the arena of public policy. Research in this area should focus on the economic and public interest aspects of this legislation. Such research could justify continued existence or point out ways to increase effectiveness.
• Most previous research has centered on agricultural producers and processors, who generally pay for these programs through mandatory assessments. Since these programs impact both consumers and tax payers, more analyses are needed to examine economic impact on other interests.

Develop ways to conduct economic analyses of small budget programs and program activities.

• Identify threshold levels as well as demand-promotion response functions for small budget programs.
• Encourage researchers to develop short cut ways to evaluate the economic costs/benefits of small budget programs.

Improve communication and coordination among groups interested in the success of the investments in commodity promotion programs.

• Sponsor semiannual meetings for researchers and practitioners.
• Conduct workshops for CEOs and leaders of promotion groups.
• Encourage NICPRE to continue to publish and distribute a quarterly newsletter and research reports.
• Encourage researchers and practitioners to publish their work in professional journals.
• Help commodity organizations translate research results into management applications.