Awareness Assessment of Safe-Guard® in the United States Cattle Industry
Tiffany Ligtenberg, Centennial, CO, defended her thesis, “Awareness Assessment of Safe-Guard® in the United States Cattle Industry“ on April 14, 2017. She works as the National Accounts Manager for VetsPlus, Inc!. Ligtenberg graduated from Kansas State University in May 2017 with a Master of Agribusiness (MAB) degree.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, cattle production is ranked first in the country in cash receipts among agricultural commodities. Due to the cyclical nature of agriculture, cattle operation investments can have risk involved, and inputs such as feed, labor, animal health costs and marketing costs must be considered in an operation’s economic plans. Parasites and other animal health issues can introduce an increased risk for herds, resulting in increased long-term costs. In her thesis, Ligtenberg studied the awareness that operation managers have towards Safe-Guard, a parasiticide, and evaluated how increased awareness could benefit operations across the country.
“The main objective of this research was to assess customer awareness of the internal deworming product, Safe-Guard, available in the United States. The secondary objective was to identify future marketing strategies in hopes to increase overall awareness of the wide range of products available to satisfy customer needs in a cost-effective manner” Ligtenberg said.
Ligtenberg’s research found that there is a lack of awareness of various non-handling and handling forms of Safe-Guard. She determined that improved efforts by parasiticide manufacturers and dealers to market the economic benefits of their products could result in increased profitability for these organizations and ultimately, lead to increased profitability and reduced risk for many beef operations.
Dr. Dustin Pendell, Associate Professor and Ligtenberg’s thesis advisor, said, “Tiffany has done an outstanding job incorporating her educational training from the MAB program and professional experiences to evaluate the awareness of a pharmaceutical product. Her evaluation of the products will assist in their future marketing efforts.”
The full thesis publication can be found online on Kansas State University’s Research Exchange at http://hdl.handle.net/2097/35404.
