Currently, there are a number of advertising and promotion programs associated with agricultural commodities. 'Got Milk?' 'Pork. The Other White Meat,' 'Cotton: The Fabric of Our Lives,' 'Beef. It's What's for Dinner,' and 'American Lamb from American Land' are examples of messages from various commodity boards who are attempting to impact the demand for their agricultural products. These messages typically are labeled as generic advertising and promotion and the institutional structure for funding them is referred to as commodity checkoff programs. This theme centers attention on why checkoff programs were instituted initially, how program benefits are measured, the costs associated with various programs, the evidence to support their existence, and the legal challenges surrounding checkoff programs.

Generic advertising messages are government-sanctioned but producer-funded efforts to enhance the demand for farm commodities. Each generic promotion program is about information to broaden consumers' understanding of attributes and uses of the commodity. Essentials functions for the success of these programs are set forth and then economic impacts are considered.

Recently, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the beef checkoff is Constitutional, based upon the doctrine that the checkoff program, although funded by beef industry participants is government, not private, speech. The authors examine recent checkoff rulings, discuss how the Court arrived at its decision, and consider the repercussions.

This paper reviews factors influencing retail-to-farm price transmission of generic advertising. The importance of input substitution in estimating returns to advertising is discussed. Focusing on production processes for converting raw food materials into final consumer products is essential to understanding how generic advertising is transmitted to the farm level.

All federal and many state checkoff organizations are required to perform evaluations of the effectiveness of their programs periodically. Measuring effectiveness begins with understanding the promotion objectives and then adopting an appropriate measurement technique. Once effectiveness has been measured, however, the checkoff program still faces the challenge of communicating the results.

It is an important task to understand factors affecting producer support for successful checkoff program management. We surveyed producer support for checkoff programs among Oklahoma cattle producers and found that the support rates tended to differ across farm size, farm type, organizational affiliation, and producer attitudes toward ongoing checkoff programs.