“Better Beekeeping, Better Marketing”…
“Better Beekeeping, Better Marketing”
The phrase was linked to the National Beekeepers’ Assn for almost all of its existence, but oddly, it wasn’t the NBA that coined the expression.
W.B. “Billy” Bray was the first to set “Better Beekeeping – Better Marketing” as a motto, and it appeared on Vol. 1, No. 1 of The New Zealand Honey Producer in July 1930.
https://images.slideplayer.com/19/5881306/slides/slide_33.jpg
Bray published the magazine for several years through the difficult times when the co-operative marketing body, the Honey Producers’ Assn, was in financial peril. Two absolute boomer seasons – great beekeeping – were not enough to balance the marketing turmoil, both domestic and export. The marketing was letting down beekeeping.
The 1930’s were hard times for beekeeping and beekeepers. At the end of the decade the NBA regained significance, and started to produce the New Zealand Beekeeper magazine again, after a 17 year gap. And on the cover of Vol.1 No.1.? “Better Beekeeping, Better Marketing”. The words were laid out in two boxes, side by side, giving evidence of the need for attention to both by the NBA.
https://archive.org/details/1939_01_nzbkpr
There are no mentions of why the NBA chose that particular catch cry, nor any subsequent interjections by Billy Bray about his personal responsibility for the original use. But the phrase was to appear on every cover of the magazine until the late 1950’s. Well, fair enough – they weren’t so much ‘covers’ as pre-printed light card wrappers, the same from one month to the next, apart from the date and volume details.
But the slogan “Better Beekeeping, Better Marketing” remained, often as part of an NBA promotional notice toward the back of each magazine and sometimes referred to in reminding people of the aspirations of the NBA.
At various times enough beekeepers would feel disgruntled enough to form an association of their own. It was never based on beekeeping vs. marketing, but more often a desire to ensure a “voice was heard”. An example might be the Honey Suppliers’ Assn in the late 1940’s. The members would have each been NBA members, but established to try to promote the specific interests of the beekeepers who supplied honey to the primary marketing body. As a political force the Honey Suppliers had a representative appointed alongside the NBA, with the feeling that this grouping of people involved in honey production should have more say in honey marketing policy development.
In late 1967 the NZ Honey Packers’ Assn was formed to better establish and promote the specific interests of honey packers. At this stage, the Honey Marketing Authority had the sole right to export honey, and the Honey Packers worked openly for changes to the HMA and export opportunities. But even so, this contribution to “better marketing” was never placed “up against” better beekeeping.
https://archive.org/details/1967_11_nzbkpr/page/6/mode/2up?q=%22honey+packers+association%22
In 1958, the NZ Beekeeper magazine celebrated 20 years of publication. Editor John McFadzien gave credit for the origins of “Better beekeeping, better marketing” to the 1938 President, L.F. “Len” Robins, of Temuka. Neither Robins nor Bray provided any subsequent correction, or at least one that was ever published.
https://archive.org/details/1958_11_nzbkpr/page/30
Len Robins had been involved in the industry for about the same period of time as Bray, and they seemed to have a common interest in both beekeeping and marketing. It is possible that it was, in fact, Robins who came up with the phrase, which Bray then adopted for his magazine.
In 1980, NBA President Paul Marshall described the dis-establishment of the Honey Marketing Authority, saying:
With the opening up of free trade, our next priority must now be consideration on what export controls in the categories of both price and quality the industry should follow, either on a voluntary or compulsory basis. Although this is still the prerogative of the authority, while it is still in existence, the time is coming when the association must accept the responsibility in this field of honey marketing. After the authority has been disbanded, it will remain the sole, fully representative industry body to do the job. Perhaps then, and only then, can the association live up to its motto. . . better beekeeping, better marketing.
https://archive.org/details/1980_09_nzbkpr/page/12/mode/1up
The introduction of a formal industry planning system in 1984 brought the slogan to new prominence as it was used as the Mission of the NBA in the Management by Objectives planning process. But the plan didn’t just let it stand on its own, as it had for so many years. Rather, a series of “aims” were added as well, identifying areas where the NBA could “help members”. I remember at the time that it didn’t really fit well with the Management By Objectives process, as the statements were never really linked into the rest of the planning. In a later planning exercise it was noted that the only problematic aspect of “Better beekeeping, better marketing” was that it “…splits production and sales”, but that overall it was still “an admirable mission statement” for the NBA.
And with the introduction of the first Industry Plan at the 1984 NBA Conference, the conference took on the theme “Better Beekeeping, Better Marketing”…
https://www.beekeeping.nz/NZBDA/timeline/1984_05_Industry_Plan_process.pdf
Ian Berry, NBA President, drew on the slogan for part of his President’ Report, saying that two years of abnormally small honey crops has put the emphasis on production to a greater extent.
https://archive.org/details/1984_09_nzbkpr/page/14/mode/2up
The pendulum between the production (and the producers!) of honey, and the marketing of the products has swung between the two over the last nearly 100 years. The dramatic failure of marketing components through the 1930s, for instance, saw a dramatic shift in beekeeping interest from the aspects of producing a good crop, to those of getting rid of it profitably. Through the 1950s, with the Honey Marketing Authority in operation, many beekeepers were quite happy to focus more on hive management and equipment to produce bigger crops, leaving all of the marketing to the HMA.
The dissolution of the HMA in the early 1980s brought marketing to the fore again. The NBA’s Marketing Committee was a prime example, leading ultimately to changing manuka honey from a problem to a potentially valuable product.
“Better Beekeeping, Better Marketing” – what’s not to like about it? Now if we can just get that balance between the two right…