by North Carolina’s Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler from his May column “From the Tractor” for the department’s monthly newsletter the Agricultural Review:

If you look over at page 5 in the newspaper you will see some behind-the-scenes photos from a video shoot our Marketing Division did with N.C. State men’s basketball star DJ Burns to promote chocolate milk as a post workout recovery drink.

If you are a N.C. State fan or alumni or just a basketball fan, I don’t have to expain that DJ Burns was part of the team that made an incredible late season run in the NCAA tournament to get to the Final Four.

I would have loved to see them win the whole tournament, but they had a tremendous season that brought back memories of the 1983 team that did win the National Championship. And regardless of the outcome, they have a lot to be proud of and fans have a lot to celebrate.

One of the things I enjoyed most about watching the game was seeing the smiles and joy that the players brought to the court. DJ Burns was one of the players with the biggest smile and he quickly developed a pretty big social media following.

That smile and fun personality translated into promo opportunities that college players can now engage in called NILs or Name, Image and Likeness deals.

This was the second NIL deal our Marketing Division has inked with college players to try to broaden the reach of our marketing and promotional messaging, in particular, trying to reach young audiences.

I have challenged the division to work to expand our marketing efforts in new and creative ways and these promotions did that. If we want to talk to younger audiences, we know they are on the popular Instagram and Tik Tok social media platforms.

I mentioned that DJ Burns’ social media following grew during the tournament, well, he has nearly 250,000 followers on his Instagram account. Think about being able to put a marketing message out to all those people! And that’s how the chocolate milk promotion came to be.

I hope you will check out DJ’s Instagram (@DJ.b30) post and like it. We have shared it on the department’s Facebook account (@NCAgriculture) and the N.C. State Fair (@NCStateFair) Facebook account has shared it as well.

Our other NIL deal was with three of the UNC women’s basketball players also promoting chocolate milk as a recovery drink. Again, our goal in working with different athletes is to try to reach people we may not normally reach to promote North Carolina farmers and agriculture industry – in this case the dairy industry. We can’t just market to the choir!

We think we are one of the first state agencies to enter into an NIL deals with student athletes, but I will say we are still learning about these promotions and are eager to see how the numbers come out.

But, I hope everyone reading this will go out and enjoy a cold, fresh glass of North Carolina milk – chocolate or white … your choice!