USA Rice Ad Wins Award and Increases Rice Sales in Ghana

ACCRA, Ghana, November 23, 2005 — The USA Rice Federation received an award in the Food and Confectionary category for print advertisements at the Advertising Association of Ghana Gong Gong Awards, Saturday, Nov. 19.

The winning USA Rice press advertisement was used as part of an integrated media campaign for U.S. rice, featuring advertisements in TV, radio and print media, May-July 2004. The effective campaign resulted in Ghana importing 131,000 metric tons of rice from January-September 2005, an 87 percent increase from the same period in 2004.

“Ghana is a key growth market for U.S. rice where we have un-restricted commercial access,” said USA Rice’s VP of International Promotion Jim Brow.

“Ghana is also a good example of the kind of success our talented international promotion team can achieve when decisions on importing and purchasing rice are left to the market place and consumer,” said Brow.

The Gong Gong Awards are advertising industry awards that recognize and reward creativity in the industry and this year’s theme was ‘creativity, relevance and the bottom line.’

“It is a great accomplishment that our promotional efforts not only had a major impact on Ghana’s imports of U.S. rice, but that our advertisement was recognized by an independent professional body as well,” said Eszter Somogyi, USA Rice’s international program manager.

The advertisement campaign was developed based on research information from traders and consumers in Ghana and had a messages that focused on U.S rice’s high quality as well as the enjoyment gained from spending a meal together as a family eating U.S. rice. The campaign had positive acceptance among the consumers.

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Caption: USA Rice's award-winning advertisment

CONTACT: Sarah Castleberry, (703) 236-1458, scastleberry@usarice.com

USA Rice Federation is the national advocate for all segments of the rice industry, conducting activities to influence government programs, developing and initiating programs to increase worldwide demand for U.S. rice, and providing other services to increase profitability for all industry segments.