SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) – The high cost of advertising and a struggling U.S. beef industry have forced popular beef ads off television, and it does not appear they will be returning any time soon.
Voiced over the years by actors Robert Mitchum, James Garner and Sam Elliott, the ads featured a catchy musical number while the narrator extolled beef’s virtues as a quick-to-fix, nutritional food, ending with the tagline “Beef, It’s What’s for Dinner.”
Tom Jones, secretary-treasurer of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board, said the industry’s promotional money is now spent on point-of-purchase materials in supermarkets, overseas promotions and internet marketing.
“We have not been on TV for some time simply because of the economies of doing TV with reduced revenues on the checkoff,” Jones said.
The industry used to collect $86 million a year from producer checkoffs, but a smaller cattle herd has reduced it to $80 million.
