'Screaming orange' a hit design

A screaming orange about says it all for growers who face the prospect of a dreaded new disease that will wipe out an entire citrus grove in just a few years.

But it also proved to be a winning design for a marketing campaign by a Yuma-based international agricultural chemical company that has a long-standing chemical in its arsenal against citrus pests.

The original design was addressing a serious threat to citrus groves – the citrus psyllid, said Micahlynn DeAnda of the Gowan Company. The psyllid carries a disease that causes what is commonly referred to as “citrus greening” that is deadly to citrus trees. An infected tree starts producing oranges that are bitter in taste and completely inedible, then the tree eventually dies.

Citrus greening has been devastating the Florida citrus industry. The psyllid has been found in Mexico, Arizona, California and Texas, with concerns it's only a matter of time before the insect will introduce the disease.

"When I asked the product manager what’s going through the growers' heads when they hear about psyllids and citrus greening, he made the comment that they just want to scream ... that it’s a very, very scary thing to be faced with as a citrus grower," DeAnda said. "That spawned the idea of an orange just going berserk because he found out he has psyllids in his grove. And thus, the Psyllid Scream."

The ads and campaign were created for Imidan, an insecticide commonly used on citrus trees, DeAnda said. "Imidan is a 50-plus-year-old product that happens to still work really, really well. It has a lot of loyal users, but also has a lot of growers who have stopped using it because of newer, sexier products that have become available."

Therefore, she said, she was asked to re-create Imidan and give it a new face - "something that would make people stop in their tracks and look at it."

The design was done inhouse using Photoshop, DeAnda said. "The first design (single screaming orange) took me about five hours to do. The eyes and mouth were taken from a photo of a child screaming, then placed on the orange and the color matched as closely as possible, taking care to save some of the facial detail to make it more expressive."

She said the company has received tremendous interest in its "screaming orange."

"We get calls all the time from people in the industry that totally relate and can’t help but laugh because it’s so true, how you feel when you find out that you have psyllid in your grove."

The company also gets calls from people who aren't in the citrus industry but love the design and want a copy, she said. So posters were made of the ad "and we have been sending them out left and right."

The ad also proved to be a hit with the National Agri-Marketing Association, which presents annual awards for its Best of NAMA competition.

For its "screaming orange" marketing campaign, Gowan Company won first place in three different categories in the regional campaign: Single Page Ad, 2-Page Spread and Multi-Media Campaign. Region I includes California, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada and Utah. The awards were announced at the Tulare Farm Show on Feb. 9, and DeAnda was able to receive them in person.

The company now is in the running for national awards to be announced April 21 in Kansas City, Mo. The Yuma-based company will be competing against Pioneer Hi-Bred International and Syngenta for all three categories.

The company didn't stop there.

"Since we’ve had such a great success with the screaming orange, we decided to spread the fun into the other crop groups that Imidan is labeled on and with much success," DeAnda said.

The company now has designs for apples, pears, almonds and other tree fruits. For 2010, the company put together a calendar featuring all new faces and fruits "and they are a smash hit."

Anyone wanting a calendar can call Gowan Company at 783-8844.