If you were travelling between Rosetown and Biggar this summer, you may have noticed some "baleboards" along Highway 4.
The "baleboards" are really hay bales wrapped in a printed design of a Busch beer can as part of an advertising campaign to promote the company's limited edition Busch Farmer's Pack.
Stuart Lawrence farms in the Rosetown area and was one of two participants in the campaign, with Wylie Seed and Processing in Biggar the other participant.
Lawrence explained his involvement started in July of last year when he hosted a field day for Labatt executives.
"From there, a bit of a relationship was formed with the marketing team." he said.
Lawrence admitted he wasn't sure what the "baleboards" would look like at first, but was later impressed with how they turned out.
"They actually put a lot of thought into the location of the bales and how they were arranged. They had a good visual look from the highway as people drove past. In the end, it was a really neat project to be part of."
He looked at the collaboration as an opportunity to promote the value chain from farmer, to brewer, to consumer.
"I think it's important that everybody understands that we are each a cog in a link in the value chain. There's value along the way for producers, for the maltster, for the brewer, when consumers make that choice to consume a product that we produce. It's an opportunity for me to say thank you as a farmer to everybody that participates in making that product that people enjoy responsibly." he said.
People posted on social media to note they've driven past the "baleboards".
Lawrence says people in the community were talking about them and noticed people would stop near his farm to take a photo.
"A couple of times when we're out checking fields, we'd see people out standing by them," he said. "I was driving past and so I stopped and there was a young couple that were taking their photos. I offered to take a photo of them so that they have it for their social media. The reception has been really good."
Wanted to do something different
Patrick Heembrock, the Marketing Director for Busch, says the rationale behind the "baleboards" was to do something that could be expressed as a thank you to farmers while promoting the product, as opposed to the traditional use of billboards.
" And so that's where we came up with the idea of converting hay bales into bale boards and making them super-sized six packs of our new farming can that were sort of basically growing out of the fields where our farmers were growing (crops)." explained Heembrock.
He noted the hay bales were locally sourced and the printed design came from a local business.
While the final product turned out well, he said it was a two to three process to assemble everything.
" We did have to work with a local printer to print out essentially gigantic wraps, so like a picture, almost like a huge vinyl sign that we printed out. And then we had teams on the ground that more or less assembled them," he said. "They wrapped the huge sort of sign all around it, hammered it in, fit the sides, and then tightened it up so it looked exactly like a gigantic beer can."
All the work that went into was worth it, he said, as the reception was "amazing" from the farmers who "were really excited to participate in the project" to "a lot of feedback from others in and around the community about how exciting it is."
"And then amazingly, the campaign's actually been now picked up in 14 different countries, so from sort of a Saskatchewan start to places like France and Italy and even Vietnam now sort of jumping in and getting a kick out of it." Heembrock added.
With the campaign considered a success, he says they're committed to collaborating more with farmers in the future by committing to invest 10 per cent of Busch's national media budget towards "farm forward placements like this."
"So it could be more baleboards or other creative things that we can bring along with farmers." he said.
Busch paid the farmers the standard market rate for every "baleboard".
When asked how much was the rate, Lawrence didn't disclose the figure but described it as more than enough for a steak dinner, but short of a new truck.
