March 28, 2003 - The Flower Promotion Organization announced today that it will dedicate partnership funds to accelerate the expansion of it's proven consumer focused 'flowers as home décor' message into new markets. Substantial partnership funds have been budgeted this year to help local groups launch and sustain a successful consumer marketing campaign utilizing the FPO's award winning creative and support materials. Under the partnership efforts, the FPO provides all of the promotional materials at no cost to the local market, plus invests start up funding to help the local groups maximize their financial investment in the marketing program. This successful advertising and PR campaign currently runs in six major markets.

"We believe that we have developed a cost effective model in our current markets that can be duplicated in other cities," stated Lee Murphy, FPO Secretary and President/CEO of the California Cut Flower Commission. "Three years of developing, testing and fine-tuning the media mix and pacing with measured results has enabled us to craft an advertising campaign that is extremely effective and surprisingly affordable. What we've learned and offer can benefit any market in the U.S."

Many state, local and regional floral groups have approached the FPO about taking the "Flowers. Alive with Possibilities" campaign to their markets. This partnership program will enable some of these organizations to start reaping the benefits of the campaign this year. For example, the Metro Atlanta Flower Delivery Co-op retailer members are using the FPO partnership as the catalyst to coalesce the Atlanta floral community to start a consumer marketing campaign.

"Our data and experience indicates that we can run sustainable campaigns in all size markets on budgets that are affordable for local coalitions of retailers, wholesalers and suppliers to support," stated FPO Executive Director Stan Pohmer. "Our goal is to assist local groups in creating a long term, self-supporting campaign that utilizes our outstanding advertising material and public relations. There will be no set formula on how we apply these funds in each market. We will handle this on a case by case basis to ensure success in all partnerships we undertake, meeting the local market needs and goals, and our mutual objective of increasing the consumption of cut flowers."

Groups interested in working with the FPO campaign should contact either Stan Pohmer (952) 545-7943 (stan@flowerpossibilities.com) or Will Carlson (989) 834-1322 (will@flowerpossibilities.com) to discuss the endless possibilities of an FPO partnership.