Ad campaign would push fresh Christmas trees

WASHINGTON -- Got Christmas tree?

Just in time for the holidays, some domestic Christmas tree producers are hoping to emulate the nation's dairy, beef and cotton farmers, who tax themselves to pay for common ads. But first, they must rally support for an idea some producers oppose on principle.

On Monday, the Agriculture Department began public consideration of the proposed Christmas tree promotion program.

If approved, it would raise $2 million a year for ads meant to offset the increasingly competitive artificial tree industry.

Artificial tree sales nearly doubled to 17.4 million from 2003 to 2007, according to the Agriculture Department. Fresh-tree sales, meanwhile, have declined overall from 37 million in 1991 to 31 million in 2007, according to the Agriculture Department.

North Carolina's Christmas tree industry is ranked second in the nation in number of trees harvested, according to the N.C. Christmas Tree Association.

There's nothing ho-ho-ho about the competition with artificial trees. Tree farmers dismiss "fake" trees while artificial tree manufacturers retort that their products don't shed needles and don't catch fire.

"We think this is a really good idea," said Paul Battaglia, owner of the Battaglia Ranch in San Martin, Calif. "We've been losing a lot of our market share."

Any new ad campaign, though, would probably have to stay positive.

The proposed Christmas tree program would be akin to 18 existing promotion orders already overseen by the Agriculture Department and funded by industry assessments. Some are very large, like two dairy industry programs that together collect about $391 million annually. Others are modest, like the $2.7 million-a-year watermelon promotion program.

Some of the resulting promotions, including the dairy industry's long-running "Got Milk?" campaign and the cotton industry's "Cotton: the fabric of our lives" slogan, have entered the national vocabulary.

Overall, farmers and Agriculture Department officials tout the assessment-funded ad programs as successful and worth the price.

"These marketing efforts have had a positive and a statistically significant impact on per capita fluid milk consumption," officials with the dairy industry programs asserted, in their most recent annual report.

Skeptics exist, though, and some producers challenge both the efficacy and fairness of mandatory advertising fees.

Within California's San Joaquin Valley, for instance, some tree fruit producers have fought similar assessment programs for many years, with several challenges reaching the U.S. Supreme Court.

The proposed Christmas tree program would charge producers and importers 15 cents for every fresh-cut tree. A Christmas Tree Promotion Board, appointed by the Agriculture Department, would administer the money.

The new program could be established after the public comment period expires Feb. 11. An industrywide referendum would be held within three years to determine whether the program continues.

There are about 12,000 U.S. tree farms, according to the Agriculture Department. The National Christmas Tree Association, citing consumer surveys, pegs total fresh Christmas tree purchases at roughly 28 million annually. The survey-produced consumer estimates differ from the Agriculture Department's production numbers.