FPO Contributes to Cut Flower Market, Consumer Research
The Board of Directors of the Flower Promotion Organization (FPO) has authorized the donation of $600,000 to the Floral Marketing Research Fund (FMRF) and $300,000 to the PR Fund at the Society of American Florists to fund market and consumer research and PR activities that will help increase the consumption of cut flowers in all retail channels. The Flower Promotion Organization is an alliance of Colombian and U.S. cut flowers growers and a 501c6 organization. The FPO has devoted nearly 15 years to direct consumer marketing, funding industry marketing and research efforts, and helping to educate the floral industry on ways to reach consumers with the positive benefits messages that cut flowers provide. Augusto Solano, president of Asocolflores (the Association of Colombian Flower Exporters) and co-chairman of the FPO said, “Through the efforts of the FPO, the industry has learned a lot about what drives consumer purchases, the benefits of flowers on people’s lives and lifestyles, and effective ways to deliver our messages. However, we’ve also learned that the cut flower industry is not yet ready to work collectively towards achieving a sustainable industry-wide funding and marketing effort, so the FPO Board has decided to work through other floral organizations to help expand their marketing and research activities” . The research funded by the FPO’s $600,000 commitment to the Floral Marketing Research Fund is coordinated by the American Floral Endowment and will be focused on activities that benefit the cut flower community. All of the FPO-funded FMRF research and studies will be made available for industry use immediately upon completion. Most recently, the FPO funded the FMRF coordinated development project that resulted in A Social Media Guide for Floral Retailers and Wholesalers. For more information on the FMRF, please go to http://www.floralmarketingresearchfund.org/. The funding relationship with the SAF PR Fund is also not new. With this $300,000 commitment, the total FPO contribution to the SAF Fund amounts to $1,097,500. SAF PR Fund research and marketing campaigns that benefited from FPO funding include the Home Ecology I and II projects, the Workplace Study, the Vitamin F project and the Flower Factor initiative. For additional information on these projects, please go to http://www.safnow.org/consumer-research-pr. “Without a continuing revenue stream and an industry commitment to invest in a broad consumer marketing campaign, the FPO Board of Directors determined that the dispersion of its financial assets to the Floral Marketing Research Fund and the SAF PR Fund made the most sense at this time,” stated Anthony Vollering, president of Sunshine Floral and co-Chair of the FPO.
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