From AI to ESG reports and agriculture PR: Q&A with Bellmont Partners’ Krista Kuzma

As Krista Kuz­ma, account super­vi­sor at Bell­mont Part­ners, cel­e­brates her five-year anniver­sary with the agency, we’re shin­ing a spot­light on her PR exper­tise and con­tri­bu­tions. Whether it’s draw­ing from her dairy farm­ing and jour­nal­ism back­ground for clients in our Hor­ti­cul­ture & Agri­cul­ture prac­tice group or cham­pi­oning sus­tain­abil­i­ty ini­tia­tives inter­nal­ly and through clients’ ESG reports, Krista brings a depth of expe­ri­ence to every one of her projects. We recent­ly caught up with Krista to cel­e­brate her five-year milestone.

Con­grats on near­ly five years at Bell­mont Part­ners and your recent pro­mo­tion to Account Super­vi­sor! After begin­ning your career in agri­cul­ture jour­nal­ism, what lessons have you learned these past five years work­ing on behalf of clients?

Thank you! It has been so much fun work­ing in this part of the com­mu­ni­ca­tions world, part­ner­ing with a vari­ety of clients to share their authen­tic mes­sages to build trust and boost recog­ni­tion. While lessons are plen­ti­ful and I’m always excit­ed to learn some­thing new, I think there are three key points that have been reaf­firmed dur­ing the last five years.

• It’s impor­tant to have strate­gic com­mu­ni­ca­tions plans with clear mes­sages that are con­cise, impact­ful and truth­ful. While this isn’t any­thing new and is a basic con­cept of com­mu­ni­ca­tions, it’s an impor­tant reminder as peo­ple now get their infor­ma­tion from an even larg­er array of sources.
• With many peo­ple turn­ing to AI for their infor­ma­tion, cap­tur­ing earned media is more impor­tant than ever. AI plat­forms pull large per­cent­ages of their infor­ma­tion from earned media cre­at­ed by rep­utable third-par­ty sources. If we want our clients to be part of AI search results, hav­ing a well-planned media rela­tions strat­e­gy is a must.
• Work­ing with clients in agri­cul­ture and hor­ti­cul­ture spaces fills my cup! We have amaz­ing clients sup­port­ing farm­ers, cre­at­ing inno­v­a­tive oppor­tu­ni­ties and doing inspi­ra­tion work, and I’m hon­ored to be able to be a part­ner to help their mes­sages come to life.

 In addi­tion to this year being a mile­stone anniver­sary year for you, it’s also the 30^th anniver­sary of the agency and was our 20^th year sup­port­ing clients at the Min­neso­ta State Fair. One of those clients is Mid­west Dairy’s Princess Kay of the Milky Way pro­gram. Tell us about that pro­gram and your per­son­al his­to­ry with it.

Each year in Min­neso­ta, Mid­west Dairy crowns one young woman as Princess Kay of the Milky Way the evening before the start of the Min­neso­ta State Fair. As Princess Kay, this woman is a spokesper­son for the dairy farm­ers of Min­neso­ta, shar­ing her pas­sion, enthu­si­asm and knowl­edge about the dairy com­mu­ni­ty and dairy prod­ucts. Dur­ing the fair, Princess Kay and the nine final­ists have their like­ness sculpt­ed in a 90-pound block of but­ter inside a 40-degree rotat­ing cool­er in the Dairy Build­ing. It’s a unique and some­what quirky long­stand­ing tra­di­tion at the Min­neso­ta State Fair, but one that is ful­ly embraced by the dairy com­mu­ni­ty, fair atten­dees, Min­nesotans and beyond.

In 2005, I com­pet­ed for the title of Princess Kay. I want­ed to share what I learned grow­ing up on a dairy farm, includ­ing let­ting oth­ers know about the love and care dairy farm­ers – like my par­ents Robert and Jean­nette Shee­han – put into their ani­mals and land every day. Plus, I liked shar­ing how dairy fit so well as a healthy option into my snacks and meals every day. As one of the final­ists, I had my like­ness sculpt­ed in but­ter at the state fair.  While many final­ists take their sculp­tures home and use them after, I couldn’t part with mine – it’s a work of art! To this day, it is still in the freez­er! While I always enjoy shar­ing this as a fun fact or dur­ing ice break­er exer­cis­es, it typ­i­cal­ly leads to con­ver­sa­tions about dairy prod­ucts and dairy farm­ers. This is the what the pro­gram is all about and what I love the most.

It tru­ly is an hon­or to bring this expe­ri­ence full cir­cle now at Bell­mont Part­ners. I get to con­tin­ue bring­ing dairy to life through our con­sumer media rela­tions work for Mid­west Dairy dur­ing the Min­neso­ta State Fair. This year, we had cov­er­age for Mid­west Dairy at the Min­neso­ta State Fair in out­lets across the state – from the major TV sta­tions to local small-town news­pa­pers and every­thing in between. We coor­di­nat­ed over 55 media seg­ments and gar­nered over 1,400 media clips with a poten­tial audi­ence over 4.4 billion.

Princess Kay of the Milky Way cer­tain­ly draws a lot of inter­est from nation­al and even inter­na­tion­al media, as well as film­mak­ers. What can you tell us about the upcom­ing doc­u­men­tary about the program?

Yes, so many peo­ple are fas­ci­nat­ed by the but­ter-sculpt­ing tra­di­tion and want to know more about the process along with why it’s done. Over the years, Princess Kay has been fea­tured in out­lets like New York Times, the Wall Street Jour­nal and CBS Sun­day Morn­ing among many oth­ers. This year, Princess Kay and many oth­ers involved in the pro­gram – includ­ing me! – were inter­viewed for a doc­u­men­tary by Dave Tar­gan, which will pre­mier next year. From the farm and dai­ly chores to the Princess Kay coro­na­tion and but­ter sculpt­ing, Dave and his crew had a true behind-the-scenes look at the Princess Kay pro­gram and the heart and soul that go into what it takes to make all the dairy good­ness found in the gro­cery store. I’m so excit­ed to see the film when it premiers!

Anoth­er area you’ve leaned into here is sus­tain­abil­i­ty – both for our agency as the lead of the Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Com­mit­tee and on behalf of clients, includ­ing sev­er­al ESG reports in the past year alone. Tell us about that work. 

I enjoy being able to col­lab­o­rate with oth­er Bell­mont Part­ners team mem­bers about how our busi­ness can think through deci­sions with an envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty lens. Through­out the year, our com­mit­tee hosts events to show­case how Bell­mont Part­ners and each of our team mem­bers in their per­son­al lives can take small actions to reduce waste.

Our clients also real­ize the impor­tance of Envi­ron­men­tal, Social and Gov­er­nance (ESG) report­ing, and how shar­ing their goals and actions with cer­tain audi­ences is ben­e­fi­cial. Our team puts our sto­ry­telling and design exper­tise to work to high­light spe­cif­ic impacts of our clients’ ESG work along­side the data. It’s always thrilling to see the final report before deliv­er­ing to the client. Their work to move the nee­dle on being sus­tain­able busi­ness­es is inspiring!

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Indeed! Thank you, Krista for the inspir­ing peek into your role at Bell­mont Part­ners, and con­grats again on five years of work­ing on behalf of our clients.