We were up to our ears in crafting stories and celebrating what humanity is capable of as part of the Shaping What’s Possible effort for Bayer. But something was missing.
The brand needed a way to share rich, deep content stories that could help humanize and perhaps destigmatize some of the technologies at work in agriculture.
Our audience was interested, but busy.
So we met them where they were turning in increasingly larger and larger numbers: their favorite podcast platform.
The Tomorrow Farm was a four-part, limited-series podcast that quickly climbed the rankings of Apple’s Science category, earning additional funding from an enthusiastic client team to support two additional episodes.
Our host, Vonnie Lea, was a surrogate for the listening audience. She’s kind and warm and whip smart and has some serious questions about how the world’s food is grown. She also had the opportunity to get answers directly from the foremost experts in their fields. Each episode is her research report back to the rest of us, the story of those she met and what she learned.
Episode 1 — Poo, Worms and the Fight Against Climate Change
From wars waged over bird droppings to farmers growing carbon and cars fueled by water, this episode looks back on the strange-but-true history and the is-it-science-fiction-or-reality future of our fight against climate change.
Episode 2 — Shoebox Satellites and Pocket Computers: The Future of the Farm
The digital revolution has shaved years off of research and development, and transported the most analog effort on Earth— agriculture—onto the cutting edge. In this episode, we count up the 1s and 0s of the farm of the future.
Episode 3 — Let’s Talk About the Thing We’re All Talking About: Sustainability
Sustainability is in the news, it’s in our politics, it’s in our hamburgers and, of course, it’s on our farms. It seems to be everywhere, but it could mean something different depending on where your “where” happens to be. In episode three, meet those making sure sustainability works for us all.
Episode 4 — Designing the Needle: How Gene Editing Can Transform Our Health and Planet
A, T, C, and G — the bases of DNA and the building blocks of all life on Earth — are our only truly universal language. They might also be the key to unlocking our shared future.
The podcast episodes were the center point of an integrated effort, supported by digital display, audio advertisements, social media and complementary content on Bayer.com.
Art Direction - Daniel Khang & Cameron Rolf
Writing - Cody Spotanski, Caroline May & Terry Stewart
Music & Sound Design - Brent Johnson
Creative Direction - Terry Stewart