New strategy
United Marketing of America
Growth always means change – a fact that KWS is experiencing every day in North America. With One Marketing, the marketing team and its managers are now taking a new approach.
Our colleagues in North America now do marketing across all areas.
For those that don’t know a lot about the structure of KWS North America, here is a little insider knowledge: It consists of KWS Cereals USA, KWS Seeds.LLC, the Innovation Management team and the Gateway Research Center. KWS Canada is the newest addition to the portfolio, having currently eight team members and growing!
Operating in Bloomington, Minnesota, KWS Seeds.LLC houses the Sugarbeet entity and all North American business partners. In Champaign, Illinois, you will find KWS Cereals USA, which includes the Hybrid Rye, Wheat Breeding and Commercial Wheat teams. In both Canada and the United States, Hybrid Rye is the only crop sold under the KWS brand name. Wheat, barley, and other cereals are sold through a licensing system. Also located in the United States is the Gateway Research Center in St. Louis, Missouri, and the KWS Sugarbeet production facility in Tangent, Oregon.
So when the call for One Marketing sounded, a plan needed to begin: Together, the Country Managers and Marketing and Managing Directors started developing a plan to implement a strategy. That eventually will include building the North American marketing team into a sort of in-house agency by tapping into the strengths of each of the Marketing Specialists to help collaborate on projects and leverage resources for all business units.
“We’re looking forward to working together to build more effective marketing programs and campaigns by sharing each other’s expertise and resources,” said Trisha Gregory, Director of Marketing.
To launch these efforts, North America has united and collaborated on their social media platforms, which included all the Business Units and the GRC. In November of 2023, the full Canadian and US Cereals teams met together for three days of strategic planning and workshops. In January 2024, the marketing leads for Sugarbeets, KWS Seeds, KWS Canada and KWS Cereals US spent a day in Champaign, taking a deep dive into the marketing plans for the 2024/2025 year, learning about the opportunities for partnership and getting a better understanding of the team members and their areas of expertise.
As the saying goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day”; the transition is still ongoing, but the North American team is motivated and sees this as a major opportunity to increase KWS’ brand awareness in North America. This mindset shift and marketing fluidity among the many branches can only strengthen the overall brand identity and our presence in North America! |
© KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA 2025
