Alexandria, Virginia – The Floral Marketing Research Fund (FMRF), the industry’s organization for floral marketing research and resources, has announced its rebrand to the Floral Marketing Fund (FMF). The comprehensive rebrand elevates the need to focus on collaborative marketing efforts and position the Floral Marketing Fund to bring industry organizations together. At the heart of the rebrand is the change of name to the Floral Marketing Fund, a new logo, tagline, and mission & vision statements encouraging industry collaboration to promote everyday purchasing of fresh flowers and plants.
The rebrand to the Floral Marketing Fund is not just cosmetic— it notes the Fund’s expanded marketing efforts and a movement towards more collaborative industry projects. While consumer research remains an integral part of the Fund’s efforts, broader coordinated promotional campaigns supported by many will benefit the industry on a wider scale. The FMF has found that through pooling industry funding and expertise, each campaign can have a more significant impact.
“We are excited to grow our collaborative efforts with other industry members. It has been extremely valuable to bring in perspectives from multiple industry segments both for our research and our promotional efforts. Together, we can develop and promote campaigns more broadly – and with the added input, we have been able to present more useful informed resources,” notes FMF President Dwight Larimer.
Originally established as the Floral Marketing Research Fund (FMRF), the Floral Marketing Fund (FMF) encourages all floral industry segments to participate in fundraising, research, and marketing efforts that benefit the floral community as a whole. The FMF’s new mission and vision statements are as follows:
Mission Statement
To develop, support, and promote collaborative fundraising, research, and marketing efforts to increase flower sales.
Vision Statement
To foster floral industry growth and inspire everyday purchasing of fresh flowers and plants through targeted promotion.
Founded in 2008 by volunteers of the American Floral Endowment (AFE) Board of Trustees, the Fund was initially solely focused on funding market research on consumer preferences. In 2012, the FMRF received a $600,000 contribution from the Flower Promotion Organization (FPO), which significantly allowed these marketing research efforts to be funded. Since that time, others have joined the effort to collaborate and contribute to special projects.
Over time, the FMF’s projects expanded and evolved beyond just research reports to broader marketing and promotional resources, including Flower Marketing Monday videos. These videos are free and downloadable for anyone in the industry to use; they were created by our community through the Flower Love Video Contest.
The Fund also began to organize more collaborative promotional efforts like the Hugs & Smiles Campaign. The Hugs & Smiles Campaign began as a joint funding effort with AFIF, Asocolflores, CalFlowers, and the Great Lakes Floral Association, partnered with the Michigan Association of Broadcasters (MAB). The campaign included radio and television promotional ads designed to get consumers to buy more flowers. The idea behind the campaign is to educate consumers on the health benefits of having flowers in their lives and how easy and safe it is to order and send flowers. Since then, the Floral Marketing Fund, in conjunction with other funding organizations seeks to launch this campaign in other states with the goal of expanding it throughout the U.S.
More recently, the FMF participated in a B2B e-commerce study with eight other industry organizations. This study aimed to take a closer look at the current B2B e-commerce technologies currently being utilized within the floral industry. The study also measures industry trends and identifies gaps in the available information that could be further researched.
Today, the relaunched FMF website houses 12 in-depth research reports and downloadable resources, with three new consumer studies being released this year! Industry organizations are encouraged to download and use these resources to help sell more flowers & plants and support their marketing efforts.
The FMF committee is always seeking input from the floral industry regarding new consumer research focuses, marketing needs, and collaborative campaigns. Please reach out to info@floralmarketingfund.org.
Furthermore, the Fund relies on industry commitment to continue to support new projects. So, if you are looking for a place to invest in consumer preference studies and resources to help promote flowers and plant purchasing, please consider contributing to the ongoing efforts of the Floral Marketing Fund.
About the Floral Marketing Fund
The Floral Marketing Fund (FMF) represents a community of floral industry organizations and leaders collaboratively supporting and funding floral marketing efforts, consumer research, and promoting the emotional wellness and health benefits to increase consumer consumption of flowers and plants.
The Fund utilizes funds and expertise from industry sources to provide both financial support and human capital to projects that will benefit the entire floriculture industry – connecting marketers and researchers directly with industry leaders to directly support increased flower sales.
