CASE Study: Land O’ Lakes

Connecting heritage with modern stewardship

scenarioDNA helped Land O’ Lakes explore how its heritage could evolve alongside contemporary farming. In-field ethnography, online discourse, and Culture Mapping revealed emerging ideas of stewardship, inclusion, and agricultural identity, informing a new cultural platform.

Key Insight: Stewardship connected inherited values with new responsibilities and forms of collaboration.

The question: What does it mean to inherit the land?

Land O’ Lakes wanted to evolve its heritage without abandoning the values farmers associated with the brand. The challenge was to understand how continuity and change could coexist as people reinterpreted the responsibilities and possibilities of contemporary agriculture.

The research: Understanding stewardship as a changing idea

We combined in-field ethnography, online discourse, and Culture Mapping to investigate emerging meanings of stewardship, inclusion, and modern agricultural identity. The work connected the brand's heritage with the lived realities of farming and the ways its future was being imagined.

The application: A platform rooted in modern farming

We built a cultural platform around modern farmers, collaborative leadership, and progressive stewardship. This gave the brand a framework for considering equity and innovation alongside its inherited values, grounding its future direction in the changing culture of agriculture.

Explore our approach: Culture Mapping · Cultural Research & Intelligence