We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful DENNIS WEAVER. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with DENNIS below.
Hi DENNIS, thanks for joining us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?
The WHY.
We here at The Organic Marketing Association believe Organic Good Food, Beverage, Health, Beauty and Farms are THE BEST for PEOPLE & PLANET and that MORE PEOPLE should be enjoying the WHOLESOME, HEALTHFUL BENEFITS of ORGANIC.
The question we raise is WHY aren’t MORE PEOPLE making the ORGANIC Choice?
We’re tired of the same ol’, same ol’ story of the Organic Industry trying to sell what Organic DOESN’T HAVE, trying to ‘educate’ its way into the marketplace, trying to explain the minutiae, the fine print, its ‘movement’.
We ask THESE QUESTIONS: Do we have to have people believing in the Organic movement? Do we really care if they don’t technically understand Organic, but if presented an IMAGE of DELICIOUS FUN, they buy more of it?
Organic doesn’t have the time and money to explain its science, but we do have enough time and money to put a SMILE on our Customers faces that leads to HAPPINESS.
After 25 Years of Organic trying to ‘educate’ itself into the Marketplace, Organic Food & Beverage Sales in the US have a paltry 3.4% Market Share by Dollar and an approx 2%+/- Market Share by Volume … a 2%+/- POPULARITY!
The Organic Marketing Association is FLIPPING THE SCRIPT to the EASY TO ENJOY, and EFFECTIVE, FUN SIDE!
The Organic Marketing Association is FLIPPIN’ THE SCRIPT TO THE FUN SIDE and passing out the party hats and horns. ORGANIC. FUN TIMES!
The Organic Marketing Association is taking out a clean sheet of paper and rewriting/reinventing/redirecting/reframing the Organic MESSAGING to JOY, DELICIOUSNESS, HAPPINESS, ENTERTAINING, CAPTIVATING, ALLURING.
We believe that’s the road to a greater Market Share for the GOOD HEALTH of PEOPLE & PLANET.
So, we say let’s have some FUN by putting some FUN in The ORGANIC STORY! FUN is hard to ignore … or to criticize.
We’re putting the SMILE to ORGANIC!
“Humor, good Music or a good Story is what can most get & hold their attention” – research from millwardbrown.com
Organic Good Food is the LIFE of the party and we’re bringing the party to the Consumer!
Organic Good Foods ARE the HEALTHY HIGH!
The proof of our Organic pudding: The Average Engagement Rate on Facebook Ads for The Food & Beverage Industry is 0.12%. Our FUN Posts garner upwards of a 13.5% ENGAGEMENT RATE, with Shares and Comments matching our FUN, one HITTING a RECORD-BREAKING 19.6%, There are never any negative or argumentative Comments made about ‘Organic’. A COMPLETE CHANGE in the IMAGE of Organic! Our FUN meets them where they are.
We even SING about Organic!
“Organic Good Food, yeah,
that’s what I’m talkin’ about.
This is the good life!
Organic food is the cure
for lovin’ life, that’s for sure.
We’re takin’ good livin’ to a whole nother level.
Change your food, change your life.
Change is good and good is right.
We’ve got good eats and good treats.
You can see ‘em shinnin’ in the glow of my skin!”
Here’s a little taste of “GOOD LiViN’” performed by our AnnaMaria Pasley-Horn http://www.changeyourfood.com/music/GLRC.mp3 from our Multi-Genre Compilation GOOD LiViN’ CD Album www.ChangeYourFoodChangeYourLife.com, inspired original songs that CELEBRATE the JOY Organic Good Food brings to LIFE. The GOOD LiViN’ CD streams 24/7 and is PLAYED & HEARD in every Country in the World, 195 Countries, + a US Territory, a Crown Dependency, a British Overseas Territory, Three French Overseas Departments, a French Overseas Region, the Cook, Marshall & Solomon Islands, Armed Forces Radio Europe & Pacific, ALL 50 States and Washington DC, attracting ‘Officially’ Registered FANS ’round the WORLD from Medellin to Memphis, Vietnam to Venezuela, India to Indiana!
Here’s WHY we’re FLIPPING THE SCRIPT:
If ORGANIC is DELICIOUS, NUTRITIOUS & HEALTHY, then why only a 3.4%+/- Dollar Market Share, a 2%+/- Market Share by Volume and 1% at the Farm Gate after 25 Years? It’s the NARRATIVE, it’s the IMAGE … it’s NOT THE PRODUCT!
As we think about the future of Organic Good Food, the reason Organics only have a niche Market Share, is because THE INDUSTRY, as a whole, has been telling virtually the same old story the entire time. The general public perceives the Organic Industry, and its Spokespeople, to always seem to be against something, always angry, anti-this, anti-that, never seem to just be HAPPY.
The Organic Industry tends to have an arrogant, above-it-all, humorless, elitist, a stern dietician’s we-know-what’s-better-for-you stance.
The Organic Industry is always fighting something, forcing its customers to be involved in a movement, to be issues oriented, to have to ‘take sides’, to consider their food purchase to be a political statement, when all the average consumer wants is to simply make a choice that reflects to them a positive, happy, trouble-free lifestyle in this World of trouble all ‘round. The general public feels overwhelmed and is tired of being lectured and warned of yet another imminent crisis.
People just want to be happy, so we leave ‘em alone with the ‘causes’ and the ‘movements’ and the politics. We don’t burden an already weary public.
Apple® makes people line up around the block for new things they don’t really need and the Organic Industry can’t even get enough people to buy enough Organic Carrots to actually make a healthful difference in their lives!
Many in the Organic Industry have called or written me, saying a better narrative is needed. I couldn’t agree more.
O’s UP!
To Your Health … ALWAYS!
Dennis L. Weaver
Founder
Change Your Food – Change Your Life™!
Producer/Publisher
Change Your Food – Change Your Life!™ GOOD LiViN’ CD
www.ChangeYourFoodChangeYourLife.com
Host
The Change Your Food – Change Your Life!™ Radio Show
https://www.rainieravenueradio.world/schedule
Co-Founder
ORGANIC. EAT ME.
www.OrganicEatme.com
Co-Founder/President
[email protected]
www.OrganicMarketingAssociation.org
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I’m a lifelong student of the food trades. Graduate, Washington State University, BA, Hotel and Restaurant Administration, with a Masters Degree in Hotel and Restaurant Administration, Michigan State University.
I’m not from a commune, I don’t wear tie-dye, I can’t spell Birkenstock and I don’t eat granola. I owned and developed innovative concept restaurants and bars for years. I invented the ENTRÉE BAKED POTATO™ and the original BARGAIN COCKTAIL™. I used to stay up late at night, drink and smoke. And on a good day, 2 or 3 packs! I had coffee and cigarettes for breakfast, a glass of water 3 or 4 times … A WEEK. Lots of Hamburger Helper, Hungry Man dinners, Banquet frozen chicken. And as a reward for workin’ hard, I would stop by a 7-11 and get a bag of chips, some orange cheese, pepperoni, cold cuts and a 32oz big gulp. What harm was I doing … I could always get up in the morning, could always go to work, only had 4 or 5 colds a year, only drowsy in the afternoon just like everybody else … didn’t have very much energy to do much of anything after work … just thought I was tired from workin’ hard …but, ooohh, what I didn’t know!!!
In 1998, I just happened to buy an Organic Apricot, and it TASTED LIKE AN APRICOT! I bought an Organic Peach at a Farmers Market and had to eat it over my kitchen sink with its sugar-juice running done my chin. AN ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS PEACH! I bought a package of Organic Cookies. BEST EVER! I began to make a variety of Organic Good Food Choices (Organic Good Food – a term I created that describes just what it is!). And each and every time I did, I felt just a little bit better … a little more energy, a little more vitality, clearer of mind, fresher of breath, lighter of step. So each decision reinforced my next.
I got to thinking there might be something to this Organic thing.
I began to read, research and study more about this phenomenon … making better food choices and feeling better! Go figure there’d be a connection between what you eat and how you look and feel! I am what I eat! And so are YOU!
I was driven by my new discovery to encourage others to make the Organic Good Food Choice for their own GOOD HEALTH & HAPPINESS as I had. How? Lectures don’t work. Workshops … who wants to go to a workshop after work! But, everyone wants to go to a a SHOW. So, in 2000, I created The Change Your Food – Change Hour Life! Show.
Over the past 35 years of traditional nutrition education, we’ve become the sickest, fattest Nation ever, growing sicker and fatter at an ever increasing rate. We’re on the verge of raising a generation that won’t live as long as the previous generation. And the first time the next generation doesn’t live as long as the previous generation will be first time that has happened in all of Humankind!
AND AFTER 35 years of traditional nutrition education, Americans meet dietary guidelines less than 2% of the time, just 7 days a year! THAT’S it! And the health of immigrants slips the longer they live in U.S.A.!
The Change Your Food – Change Your Life! Show took a different approach. Through stories, songs, testimonials and the GREAT ORGANIC GOOD FOOD GIVEAWAY, I took the facts from the science books and entertained and motivated with them.
People just want to be happy. You can’t make anybody do anything. People will only do what they WANT to do. So we cross WANT with better food choices. Instead of guidelines, admonitions, rules & regs, lectures, bans, interventions, taxes, policies, zonings and smeary copies of the Food Pyramid and My Plate, Change Your Food – Change Your Life! puts the science together in such a way that compels people to stand up and WANT to take control of their own good health.
Change Your Food – Change Your Life! Show was a FUN, high-energy GOOD HEALTH Show designed to lift spirits, put SMILES on faces, get eyes up off the horizon, EMPOWER and CONVINCE that this thing called YOUR OWN GOOD HEALTH is WELL WORTH LOOKIN’ AFTER! It’s fun. It’s easy. It’s simple! AND IT IS DELICIOUS!
The Change Your Food – Change Your Life! Show, was designed to inform, encourage, coach and INSPIRE THE AUDIENCE to make 100% Organic Good Food Choices, FOODS that are LIFE-GIVING, NOT life-diminishing.
EATIN’ GOOD = FEELIN’ GOOD! THAT’S the EQUATION for the GOOD LIFE!
Here’s a FUN “Review” from a 2003 Change Your Food – Change Your Life! Show:
Trudy Bialic
Editor, Sound Consumer
Public Affairs Manager, PCC Natural Markets
(PCC Natural Markets, based in Seattle, Washington, is the largest natural foods Co-op in the United States. The Sound Consumer is PCC Natural Markets’ widely circulated newspaper.)
“I’ve seen Dennis Weaver, the founder of Change your Food – Change your Life!, in action, and never before or since, have I seen anyone with such a natural talent for capturing an audience and bringing them to their feet with a new sense of purpose and passion for good, wholesome, organic food.
I first met Dennis a few years ago in the course of my work as Manager of Public Affairs for PCC Natural Markets, the largest natural foods cooperative retailer in the country. I’m quite careful about who and what I endorse, not only because of my current position, but also from many years as a news writer and producer for CBS News in Chicago, and as a corporate affairs manager for Time Inc. in New York. I’ve also been a good organic food junkie since the 1970s. I’m circumspect about marketing hype, so when Dennis invited me to attend a “Change Your Food – Change Your Life!” event in my hometown, I almost didn’t go. It was a work night, I work long hours, and honestly, I doubted I’d enjoy it at all, even though I had no clear idea what to expect. What could he possibly teach me, a 30-year veteran of natural and organic, about food?
I’m here to say that at 10:30 p.m. that night, after three-and-a-half hours of Dennis’s stories and theatrics worthy of P.T. Barnum, I was invigorated and on my feet with the rest of the audience. I didn’t want to leave. I’d never seen anything like it. And I saw a whole new way of reaching people new to organic food.
Whether it’s his “Don’t Buy The Lie!” challenge, his rant on “What do YOU … and YOU … and YOU over there NEED from your food,” his “Tale of Two Potatoes,” or the riff on “Why would you give $3.99 to someone for nothing — a no-cal, low-cal, no-carb, what did they do to those poor little tomatoes in that non-food product,” Dennis will WOW your audience and have them clapping for their own good health. The evening, for me and a hundred other people that night, was an unforgettable experience. He’s witty, accurate with his information, and extraordinarily entertaining, while driving home an important message.
I was so amazed by the evening’s entertainment that I wrote the next feature cover story about Dennis and his good food message in the Sound Consumer (see www.pccnaturalmarkets.com/sc/0301/sc0301-foodchoices.html “Making Better Food Choices”) He’s been called the “Organic Good Food evangelist” for good reason.
The bigger the audience the better, because he’s just that good. Knowing what I know now, I’d make him the featured guest of the best prime time available. Retailers will learn how to talk about organic good foods, how to position them, how to present them, how to make them relevant to customers.
His message lifts everyone’s spirit and empowers anyone trying to find their way through the faux food nightmare.”
Those 18-Year experiences of well-tested connections of the Audience to Organic Good Food & Drink with DELICIOUS FUN, lead to the Founding of the Organic Marketing Association www.OrganicMarketingAssociation.org
That same zest for life carries over to the Weekly Change Your Food – Change Your Life! Radio Show I Host on RainierAvenueRadio.World. It’s a FUN, FAST-PACED, ENTERTAINING 27-Minute Show, Organic exclusive.
ON The Change Your Food – Change Your Life! Show, we’ve had GUESTS from all ‘round the United States, Canada and Mexico who TALK, WRITE, GROW, MINE, FARM, POLICE, BUY, PREPARE, SERVE, MAKE, TEACH, DESIGN, PACKAGE & SING about Organic Good Food, they CREATE ORGANIC Cosmetics, ADVOCATE & LOBBY for Organic Good Food, they READ to Children about Organic Good Food, they TALK about THE GOOD HEALTH of Organic Good Food, they use Organic Good Food as THERAPY, they JUICE Organic Good Food Fruit, they GROW ORGANIC COTTON T-SHIRTS, they help with GLUTEN FREE CHOICES, offer ZERO WASTE/PACKAGE-FREE Shopping, they lift spirits with ORGANIC FLORAL ESSENCES and hand-craft an ORGANIC SOFA so soft you’ll go AHHHHH!
And for just a little MORE FUN, along with Michael Buley, created the Organic. Eat me. T-Shirt Collection … hundreds of images with FUN Headlines and tag lines available @ www.OrganicEatme.com. As we say, here @ The Organic Marketing Association, “Don’t just talk organic, WEAR IT. Make a STATEMENT. Give someone a SMILE!” Our T’s are 100% Organic Cotton grown on an Organic T-Shirt Farm in Texas … GROWN & SEWN in the USA!
O’s UP!
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The SMILE I receive when I had convinced someone to make the Organic Good Food Choice and they say, “Hey, Dennis, YOU WERE RIGHT!”
O’s UP!
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
To encourage/inspire many others to make the Organic Good Food Choice for their OWN GOOD HEALTH & HAPPINESS. To expand the Organic Good Food, Drink, Health, Beauty & Farm Market Share for the GOOD HEALTH of PEOPLE & PLANET.
O’s UP!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.OrganicMarketingAssociation.org, http://www.changeyourfoodchangeyourlife.com/, www.OrganicEatme.com, https://www.rainieravenueradio.world/schedule
- Facebook: Dennis L. Weaver https://www.facebook.com/dennis.l.weaver Organic Marketing Association https://www.facebook.com/OrganicMarketingAssociation/ Organic 4 The Win https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100092959865138 Organic. Eat me. https://www.facebook.com/OrganicEatme/
- Linkedin: Dennis L. Weaver https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennis-l-weaver-8642302/ Organic Marketing Association OMA https://www.linkedin.com/company/72290932/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/changeyourfood
- Other: https://vimeo.com/37693153 The Change Your Food – Change Your Life! Show GOOD LiViN’ with AnnaMaria Pasley-Horn and The Coco Cabading Good Livin Dancers. Stories and lots of Organic Good Food Content. FUN & EDUCATIONAL