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Land O'Lakes Brings Farmcore Fashion from Paris to the Prairie
Land O'Lakes launched Farmcore – Fashion with a Purpose in September 2024, a national integrated campaign created with creative agency of record Battery that reframes the Farmcore aesthetic — workwear rooted in agricultural life — as a cultural bridge between Fashion Week glamour and the everyday reality of American cooperative farming across the United States.
The campaign centers on a Farmcore-to-Table Runway event in which models walked a literal dining table wearing authentic workwear sourced directly from Land O'Lakes farmer-members. The event was staged to coincide with Fashion Week, drawing a deliberate arc from the runways of Paris, France to the fields of Paris, Wisconsin — a geographic contrast that gives the campaign its conceptual spine. A glambot captured close-up footage of the looks, which were paired with dairy-based dishes favored by the farmer-owners who donated their garments, including apple pie and grilled cheese, grounding high-fashion production values in cooperative culture.
Beyond the runway event, the campaign deploys an integrated media mix spanning social content, connected television, out-of-home placements, and publisher partnerships through Dotdash Meredith, as reported by LBBOnline. A traveling tableau celebrating the Farmcore aesthetic drove through the streets of New York to build street-level word-of-mouth and generate shareable content. Additional campaign elements include a custom apron giveaway and social content designed to highlight the farmer-owners who give the Farmcore trend its substance rather than merely its surface appeal. The campaign connects each consumer purchase of Land O'Lakes products to the work of more than 1,000 farmer-owners and their communities across the United States, reinforcing the cooperative's 103-year legacy of shared ownership between the brand and the people who produce its dairy. Clapboard Score: 63/100.
Farmcore emerged as a genuine social media trend before Land O'Lakes claimed it as campaign territory. The aesthetic — barn jackets, denim, overalls, and field-worn workwear — had been circulating organically across platforms, offering the brand a rare opportunity to enter a cultural conversation it did not have to manufacture. Battery's strategic decision was to treat Farmcore not as a passing trend but as a reflection of a way of life, specifically the daily work of farmers in America's rural communities, according to batteryagency.com.
Pat Dunneback, Group Brand Director at Battery, articulated the strategic rationale directly, stating, as reported by LBBOnline, that farmers are the backbone of the nation but are not always top of mind when a consumer reaches for a pound of butter or a bag of shredded cheese. The campaign was designed, in Dunneback's words per LBBOnline, to develop a culturally connected campaign that highlights these individuals while demonstrating the brand's commitment to sustainability, its people, and community impact — achieved by leaning into the Farmcore aesthetic rather than inventing a new creative frame.
The United States dairy market remains substantial and competitive. Groupe Lactalis and Nestlé rank consistently among the largest global dairy companies, according to marketresearchfuture.com, competing across retail categories that Land O'Lakes occupies in butter, cheese, and related dairy products. In a category where brand differentiation at the shelf is difficult, Land O'Lakes' cooperative ownership structure — more than 1,000 farmer-owners — is a genuine point of difference. The Farmcore campaign converts that structural fact into emotional storytelling by connecting a trending cultural aesthetic to a purchasing decision with documented community impact, a strategy that extends the thinking Battery established with the 2021 Eat It Like You Own It campaign, as documented by landolakesinc.com.
The Farmcore-to-Table Runway event is the creative anchor of the campaign. Models walked a dining table set as a runway — a single visual idea that collapses the distance between haute couture staging and a farm kitchen table, making the concept legible in a single image and immediately shareable on social platforms. The garments worn were not fashion-industry replicas of workwear but actual clothing sourced from Land O'Lakes farmer-members, giving the production an authenticity that distinguishes it from the broader genre of brand activations that merely borrow rural aesthetics.
The glambot — a high-speed rotating camera rig associated with red-carpet and awards-show coverage — was deployed to capture these field-worn jackets, jeans, and overalls in cinematic close-up, a production choice that treats cooperative workwear with the same visual reverence typically reserved for luxury fashion. As reported by the Star Tribune in October 2024, fourth-generation Winona County farmer Becky Clark was among the farmer-owners whose garments featured in the campaign, a detail that gives the creative a documented human face rather than a generalised pastoral image.
Elizabeth Nelson, Director of Brand Marketing at Land O'Lakes, stated through landolakesinc.com that the brand believes in shining a light on the incredible farmer-owners behind its products, a creative mandate that the Farmcore execution fulfils through production choices rather than through conventional testimonial advertising. The traveling New York tableau extends the creative system into out-of-home territory, while the custom apron giveaway and social content sustain the aesthetic across owned and earned channels. Production credits for the broader Farmcore campaign beyond those noted above are not fully and publicly documented across available sources.
No independently verified performance metrics for the Farmcore campaign — such as reach figures, engagement rates, or sales lift data — are publicly available at the time of writing. Campaign coverage was published by LBBOnline on September 23, 2024, and by Dairy Foods and deli market trade outlet Deli Market News on September 24, 2024, indicating meaningful trade press pickup at launch, as documented by Little Black Book and delimarketnews.com respectively. The Star Tribune's mainstream coverage on October 9, 2024 represents the strongest general-audience editorial moment, per startribune.com.
Structurally, the campaign's effectiveness case rests on several compounding factors. The Farmcore-to-Table Runway concept generates a hero asset — glambot footage of real farmer workwear on a dining table runway — that is inherently platform-native and visually distinctive against category norms. The media mix, spanning connected television, out-of-home, Dotdash Meredith publisher placements, and social, distributes that hero asset across complementary surfaces without requiring separate creative rationales for each channel. The New York street activation adds a physical earned-media dimension that pure digital campaigns cannot replicate. The campaign also builds directly on the cooperative ownership narrative Battery established with the 2021 Eat It Like You Own It campaign, according to landolakesinc.com, suggesting intentional brand-building continuity rather than a standalone tactical execution. Battery's appointment as Land O'Lakes' creative agency of record in August 2021, as reported by landolakesinc.com, underpins that long-term creative consistency.
Farmcore – Fashion with a Purpose is a 2024 national campaign by Land O'Lakes and Battery. Launched in September 2024 around Fashion Week, it connects the Farmcore workwear aesthetic to the cooperative's 1,000-plus farmer-owners. The campaign ran across social media, connected TV, out-of-home, and Dotdash Meredith publisher channels in the United States.
The Farmcore-to-Table Runway event featured models walking a dining table wearing workwear sourced from real Land O'Lakes farmer-members. A glambot captured the looks, which were paired with dairy dishes favored by the donating farmers. The event was staged to coincide with Fashion Week and took place in Paris, Wisconsin.
Battery created the Farmcore campaign for Land O'Lakes. Battery, part of Havas Media Group, has served as Land O'Lakes' creative agency of record for dairy retail brands since August 2021, according to landolakesinc.com. Pat Dunneback, Group Brand Director at Battery, and Elizabeth Nelson, Director of Brand Marketing at Land O'Lakes, led the work.
Farmcore was already an organic social media trend before Land O'Lakes claimed it. Battery identified the aesthetic as a culturally credible way to highlight the cooperative's farmer-owners. As Pat Dunneback stated via LBBOnline, the goal was a culturally connected campaign showing the brand's commitment to sustainability and community impact.
The Farmcore campaign used an integrated media mix. According to LBBOnline, it spanned experiential activations, social media, connected television, out-of-home placements, and Dotdash Meredith publisher media. A traveling tableau drove through New York streets, and a custom apron giveaway extended the campaign into owned-channel engagement across the United States.
Land O'Lakes is a 103-year-old cooperative whose products support more than 1,000 farmer-owners. The Farmcore campaign makes that ownership structure visible by sourcing actual garments from farmer-members and pairing them with their favorite dairy dishes. This approach extends the narrative Battery established in the 2021 Eat It Like You Own It campaign, per landolakesinc.com.
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