Spain: Ad campaign takes on false myths about greenhouse products

The greenhouse fruit and vegetable sector interprofessional, Hortiespaña, has held its first Ordinary General Assembly in Almeria; a meeting with the main actors in the horticultural sector of the province which has also been attended by public representatives of the regional and national administrations.

The biggest news has been the announcement of a promotional campaign aimed at improving the perception of the greenhouse as a cultivation system, both inside and outside the Spanish borders. There is a wide range of false beliefs about farming under plastic, the result of which is a negative image of intensive agriculture that has spread among all sectors of the population. These myths and urban legends are usually based on past beliefs rather than on the present, and Hortiespaña aims to put an end to them once and for all.

Changing the perception of a population accustomed to believing that greenhouses are a place where artificial foods are produced is not an easy task. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to carry out hard work at different levels of communication. With this idea in mind, they have contracted the services of the advertising agency AGR Food Marketing, which will be in charge of the campaign to debunk myths and improve the reputation of Almeria's greenhouse sector.

The advertising campaign will be carried out within the national territory and is then planned to be brought to the rest of Europe. The dissemination of the information will be done via media, posters, newsletters, statements from companies in the sector, etc., and the digital world will also play a more prominent role in this campaign.

"Many of the accusations against the greenhouse sector are made via social media or websites, so we must fight in this field," explained Hortiespaña. The campaign will have its own website, whose content will be disseminated through social media, like Youtube or Facebook, under the guidelines of content marketing. In addition, it will collaborate with agro-food journalists and influencers to promote the benefits of agriculture under shelter.

Another idea for ​​this campaign is to allow consumers to learn in situ about why plastic greenhouses are used for vegetable cultivation. To this end, trips will be organised to the areas where intensive agriculture is carried out, so that people, besides having objective information, can verify these facts by themselves. Lastly, the agro-food marketing agency also expects to work in partnership with research centres.