The Benchwarmers Syndrome: Why Agriculture Needs Marketing in the Game

I'm sitting in a client boardroom, part of the team presenting next year's marketing strategy to a major seed company. The slides are beautiful. The strategy is comprehensive. The tactics are proven. Everything is perfectly, professionally, painfully safe. Around the table, I see nodding heads and satisfied expressions. Everyone is comfortable. And I realize: we're doing it again.

Twenty minutes later, these same people are discussing competitive threats, market disruption and the urgent need for differentiation. They're worried about new entrants. They're concerned about margin pressure. They're anxious about customer loyalty. Yet somehow, nobody connects these business challenges to the marketing strategy that just got approved—a strategy so commonplace it could have been presented by any competitor with only the logo changed.

This is the Benchwarmers Syndrome in action. A syndrome driven, not by lack of talent or desire, but a systemic positioning of marketing as a support function. A downstream afterthought, rather than the strategic driver it needs to be. We—the marketers, the strategists, the brand builders—have been kept on the sidelines, running safe plays, while the business desperately needs game-changing performance.

And it's happening in agricultural companies across North America right now.

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The Comfort Trap We've All Been Caught In

The Benchwarmers Syndrome isn't about incompetence. Those of us working in agrimarketing are smart, dedicated and genuinely committed to our organizations' success. The syndrome is about a systemic dynamic that has normalized risk aversion to the point where we don't even recognize it as a choice anymore. The industry has confused keeping marketing safe with keeping it smart.

If you've worked in ag long enough, you know exactly what this looks like. Every agricultural trade show looks essentially the same because standing out feels risky when you're constantly told farmers want traditional. Every website follows the same template because "that's what customers expect", even though no one's actually asked customers what they'd prefer. Every campaign uses the same imagery because "farmers respond to pictures of farms," ignoring that farmers see pictures of farms every single day of their lives. Every message promises the same benefits because we're warned away from saying anything else.

The result? An entire industry marketing itself into invisibility. When everyone plays it safe, no one is safe. When everyone looks the same, no one gets noticed. When everyone says the same things, no one gets heard.

But here's what makes the Benchwarmers Syndrome particularly dangerous: while we're being asked to play it safe, this “safety” is actually compounding the challenges agriculture is trying to overcome. Challenges with margin pressures, challenges with growth goals, challenges with low-cost market entries and challenges with achieving the exceptional business performance farmer customers and shareholders expect.

Understanding the Pressures That Keep Us Benched

If we're going to break free from the Benchwarmers Syndrome, we need to understand the organizational dynamics that keep marketing constrained. These aren't irrational pressures. They're real forces we navigate every day, but they're also the chains that keep our potential locked on the bench.

The "farmers are conservative" assumption runs deep throughout agricultural organizations. It's used to justify conservative marketing at every turn. But here's what we know from actually working with farmers: they adopt new technologies faster than almost any other industry when they see clear value. They're not conservative about solutions. They're conservative about risk without reward. The assumption confuses farmers' pragmatism with resistance to innovation, and we end up playing it safer than our customers actually need or want.

The internal approval gauntlet makes bold ideas feel like battles we're too exhausted to fight. We all know how it works: bold ideas require defending. Different approaches need explaining. Innovative strategies demand buy-in from skeptics who've never worked in marketing but have strong opinions about what will or won't work. It becomes easier to propose ideas that won't generate pushback than to fight for ideas that could generate breakthroughs. So, we optimize for internal approval rather than external impact. Not because we lack courage, but because we're working within systems that make courage costly.

The measurement double standard keeps us trapped in safety. When we do what everyone else does, failure is collective and therefore acceptable. "The trade show didn't generate leads for anyone this year." When we do something different, failure is individual and therefore dangerous. "Your experimental campaign didn't work." This dynamic ignores that safe strategies fail slowly and invisibly while bold strategies succeed or fail quickly and obviously. We're penalized for visible failure even when invisible failure costs far more.

The expertise hierarchy prevents us from pushing boundaries. In agriculture, we often work alongside agronomists, engineers and operations experts who've spent decades in the industry. When we challenge conventional wisdom about "how things work in ag," it can feel presumptuous, even when we're bringing deep expertise about markets, customers and communication. So we defer to internal expertise about external messaging, even when that expertise is about products, not people.

The Wake-Up Call We Can't Ignore

The Benchwarmers Syndrome isn't just limiting our effectiveness as marketers. It's threatening the competitive survival of the agricultural organizations we work for. While we're being asked to play it safe, seismic changes are reshaping agricultural markets in ways that demand bold responses from marketing.

Digital transformation is accelerating beyond our organizations' response capability. Farmers use AI for crop management while we're sending them paper brochures. They operate million-dollar precision equipment while we're asking them to navigate websites that look like they're from 2015. They make legacy decisions while we're sending emotion-free marketing messages. The gap between customer sophistication and marketing approach widens daily—not because we don't see it, but because we haven't been empowered to close it.

Generational transition is reshaping decision-making dynamics faster than our marketing strategies are adapting. Millennial and Gen Z farmers don't share their parents' brand loyalties. They research online before talking to sales reps. They value sustainability alongside productivity. They expect digital experiences that match the best from other industries. The marketing that worked for previous generations literally doesn't speak their language. We see this happening, but too often we're constrained to "evolution not revolution" when revolution is what the moment demands.

Competitive intensity is increasing from every direction. Input costs are rising. Margins are compressing. New competitors are entering with different business models. Traditional competitive advantages like local relationships and product superiority are eroding. In this environment, marketing differentiation isn't nice to have—it's survival. But we're being asked to drive survival-level results with strategies designed for stability-level markets.

The consolidation acceleration changes market dynamics fundamentally. As farms get larger and more sophisticated, buying decisions become more complex. Multiple stakeholders get involved. Professional procurement practices replace handshake deals. Brand preference matters more when decisions are made by committees rather than individuals. Safe marketing that creates no preference provides no advantage in consolidated markets. We know this. But we're rarely given permission to act on what we know.

The Strategic Courage We Need to Develop

Breaking free from the Benchwarmers Syndrome doesn't require recklessness. It requires strategic courage—the willingness to take calculated risks in service of competitive advantage. This isn't about shocking for shock's sake or different for different's sake. It's about having the courage to do what strategy demands rather than what comfort allows.

And it starts with us. Not waiting for permission. Not hoping the organization will suddenly see marketing differently. But taking ownership of proving what marketing can do when it's done strategically.

Strategic courage starts with customer truth rather than internal assumption. Instead of accepting that "farmers want conservative marketing," we need to use the data at our disposal to confirm what influences their decisions. Test different approaches. Measure responses. Build evidence. Too often, we discover that customers are far more ready for bold approaches than internal stakeholders believe—but we won't know until we test it and show the data.

Creative courage involves pushing beyond agricultural marketing conventions while respecting agricultural values. This doesn't mean using urban imagery or ignoring farming realities. It means finding fresh ways to communicate that stand out while standing for something meaningful. It means believing that agricultural companies deserve marketing as innovative as their products.

Channel courage means going where competitors aren't rather than following where everyone is. If everyone exhibits at the same trade shows, we need to build the case for different venues. If everyone advertises in the same publications, we need to find different media. If everyone uses the same digital channels, we need to pioneer different platforms. This requires us to challenge inherited tactics and build business cases for strategic alternatives.

The Opportunity When Marketing Gets in the Game

Here's what I've learned after 25 years in this industry: the Benchwarmers Syndrome persists because playing it safe feels responsible. But in today's agricultural markets, playing it safe is actually the riskiest strategy available. When differentiation determines survival, boldness becomes prudent. When attention is scarce, standing out becomes essential. When competition intensifies, courage becomes competitive advantage.

The business case for getting off the bench is overwhelming. Companies in other industries that broke from marketing conventions consistently outperformed those that followed them. They achieved higher awareness with lower spending. They generated stronger preference with clearer positioning. They created defensible advantages that transcend product parity. And recent examples like Liquid Death, show that this can occur in even the most commoditized of markets.

But the professional case might be even stronger. When we demonstrate what strategic marketing can accomplish, we change how the organization sees our function. We stop being treated as the department that makes things look nice and start being recognized as strategic drivers of business performance. We stop being asked "Can you make this?" and start being asked "What should we do?"

From Benchwarmer to Game Changer

The choice facing us is stark but simple. We can continue accepting out seat on the bench, playing it safe, running proven plays that generate the same results. Or we can step onto the field, take strategic risks and create the differentiation that modern agricultural markets demand.

This isn't about abandoning agricultural values or ignoring farming realities. It's about having the courage to express those values in ways that actually create competitive advantage. It's about respecting farmers enough to engage them as sophisticated decision-makers rather than stereotypes. It's about believing that we—the marketers who know these customers, understand these markets and see these opportunities—deserve to be heard.

The Benchwarmers Syndrome is comfortable. The bench is safe. The pressure is low. But championships aren't won from the sidelines. Markets aren't captured by playing it safe. Growth doesn't come from doing what everyone else does.

The agricultural industry is at an inflection point. Traditional approaches are generating diminishing returns. Competitive dynamics are intensifying. Customer expectations are accelerating. The businesses that win will be those whose marketing has the courage to get off the bench and play to win rather than play not to lose.

Because here's the truth we all eventually learn: the biggest risk isn't failing spectacularly. It's succeeding marginally. It's being good enough to keep our spot on the bench but never good enough to change the game.

Time to call ourselves off the bench. Time to get in the game. Time to discover what we're capable of achieving when courage replaces comfort.

Ready to get off the bench? Let's talk

David "Laz" Lazarenko is a founding partner of Think Shift Inc. and author of the upcoming book "Benchwarmers: Unlocking the True Potential of Agrimarketing." For over 25 years, he has worked alongside agricultural marketers to challenge conventional wisdom and embrace strategic approaches that create competitive advantage.