National Basketball Association star Steven Adams advocates beef

“Mate, I eat beef all the time. I smash steaks y’know, all the bloody time, mate,” said Steven Adams with a thick New Zealand accent.

The Oklahoma City Thunder star is the new spokesman for the Oklahoma Beef Council and his first month has proven he is just as valuable as an advocate for the beef industry as a teammate on the court.

Adams was selected by the Thunder in 2013 and has been a starting player for much of the last six seasons. No. 12 in the paint is a powerful center and towers over most players on his and opposing teams at 7-feet tall. He is known for tough defense, good sportsmanship and his sense of humor.

However, his many adoring fans do not realize Adams has strong ties to agriculture because of experiences on his brother’s dairy farm in New Zealand. In fact, Adams had planned on becoming a farmer when he was growing up. Because of this, he has always been a strong proponent of agriculture and enjoys sharing his love for beef.

“I loved the hard, physical work of farming and working on the land,” Adams said. “From building fence to calving and feeding—you name it and I have done it on the farm. I have fond memories of spending time working with my brother. Because of this, I have a major respect for farming and ranching families, whether they are here in Oklahoma or my home country of New Zealand.”

The lessons he learned on the farm have also translated to his career in basketball. Adams says it takes commitment to your team and fans to be successful and on the farm you have to be dedicated to family, the animals and the land. His alignment with the beef industry and agriculture in general was hard for the OBC to ignore.

“Steven’s agent contacted us and shared a video from an interview with Steven where he talked about his favorite food, beef, and his favorite snack, mince pie (a ground beef savory pie),” said Heather Buckmaster, OBC executive director. “We did a significant amount of review before we decided to start the process of moving the partnership forward.”

Buckmaster says Adams turned out to be a perfect fit in that he loves beef and, as a professional athlete, his body benefits from the many nutritional advantages of beef. The campaign focuses on how beef drives his play on the court and promotes a healthy diet through the essential nutrients it provides such as protein, zinc, iron and B-complex vitamins.

“Through this partnership I have the opportunity to help share their story while also featuring the nutritional role beef plays in my diet,” Adams said.

In fact, as part of the campaign, the OBC added a “Steven’s Steak of the Month Club.” As the only member, he receives a box of his favorite Oklahoma steaks to “smash” on the OBC’s tab. The cuts he requested were tomahawk, T-bone, filet and ribeye.

And the crowd goes wild

On Jan. 12, Adams’ first commercial as spokesman was released on social media. He appears sitting on the tailgate of a truck in a pasture and speaks of his love for beef, all the while holding a basketball with “BEEF” printed in bold font.

“I believe one of the reasons the campaign has struck a chord is because it’s Steven and very little was scripted except for “Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner,” Buckmaster said.

According to Buckmaster, since its release several weeks ago by the OBC, it has already achieved more than 750,000 organic video views, meaning the messaging and star power were driving the reach and not advertising dollars. She says both ESPN and “Inside the NBA” on TNT played the video on their broadcasts and stories have been featured across marketing and sports blogs as well as Yahoo News and local Oklahoma media.

“ESPN shared the video on its broadcast and then an ESPN reporter with two million plus followers tweeted the video generating more than 64,000 views in just two days,” she explained. “An Instagram account focused on basketball generated 362,000 views in four days. It’s all-organic reach has stretched the producer’s checkoff dollars much further.”

Buckmaster says OBC is fortunate to have someone like Adams in that he has a passionate following in Oklahoma, across the nation and even internationally as an athlete playing in the big leagues.

“It naturally inspires organic social media reach,” she added. “In a sense, it reduces the cost of paid advertising because social media helps spread the word.”

She says the OBC is also fortunate to have such a pleasant, funny and down to earth spokesman in Adams.

“I have said it more than once, but he was such a good sport that day we filmed the video,” she said. “It was hot and humid and we only had him for five hours so there was no time to spare.”

Buckmaster says another video is soon to be released and is more of a featurette with Adams spending time on the ranch. Paid digital advertising and digital billboards are also in the works to further boost the reach of the campaign. An National Basketball Association star promoting Oklahoma beef producers might sound like a mismatch on the surface, but a lesson can be learned from this story that the agriculture industry should consider. That a nontraditional agriculture marketing campaign can tap into an audience agriculture has been trying to reach.

Although Adams is in the minority as a public figure with an agricultural upbringing and passion for farming and ranching, his campaign seems to be transcending typical agriculture marketing as we know it.

When Adams was announced as the spokesmen, scores of viewers watched the OBC commercial with the NBA star, and many of those individuals probably would not have clicked on the link if they had not recognized the public figure on their screen. Regardless, one thing is clear, OBC has learned to see promotion from a different approach.

“I think you have to keep your eyes open to all possibilities,” Buckmaster said. “It never would have occurred to me a year ago that we would be in a partnership with a professional basketball player like Steven Adams.”

It does not seem like the OBC will have difficulty continuing their trend of positive exposure of beef through their NBA talent. Adams stated his favorite part of the video shoot was “smashing” steaks and checking cows, two requests Buckmaster and the OBC will have no trouble accommodating.

Lacey Newlin can be reached at [email protected]. To view the OBC’s video, visit www.facebook.com/oklabeef/videos/348626465972213/.