What it had to solve
A Minnesota farmer co-op wanted city audiences and the ad industry to see modern rural America as it lives, not as stock photography imagines it.
The idea
Answer invisible-rural research by doing the most urban thing possible: real farm photography on Times Square billboards during Advertising Week.
How it works
Imagery from Repicturing Rural — the 2025 Land O'Lakes-Getty collection built with the Modern Rural Collective — ran on Clear Channel screens in Times Square during Advertising Week NY, expanding to more cities around National Farmer's Day, Oct 12.
What it did
Searches for rural imagery rose 22% in 2024 and another 8% in early 2025 per Getty data; the collection now licenses to other brands; the campaign expands nationally Oct 12.
Background
Getty's VisualGPS Insights found that only 5% of popular US visuals are set in rural locations, and nearly two-thirds of Americans living in rural communities feel advertisers do not understand them. Land O'Lakes, the Minnesota farmer co-op, answered with a placement paradox: photographs of contemporary rural life on some of the most urban ad space in America — Times Square — during Advertising Week New York, October 5-8, 2026.
The imagery comes from Repicturing Rural, the collection Land O'Lakes and Getty began in 2025 through the Modern Rural Collective, alongside newly captured content; Getty's Custom Content team and VisualGPS insights platform sit behind it. Clear Channel Outdoor carries the screens, with a second phase expanding to more metropolitan markets around National Farmer's Day on October 12 — cities unnamed. CMO Heather Malenshek was to discuss accurate representation at Advertising Week, saying the goal is to 'close the gap between how rural America is perceived and how it truly lives'.
The numbers the campaign leans on: rural-imagery searches rose 22% in 2024 and a further 8% in the first part of 2025 — figures that all originate with Getty, a commercial partner in the campaign, and the statement supplies no sample size or survey date for the two-thirds finding. PPC Land flagged both caveats.
Why it lands
Stock photography had standardized a dated rural iconography — overalls and barns — that brands kept buying.
Times Square during Advertising Week puts the argument in front of the industry that buys the imagery, not just the public.
The co-op owns the supply: its collective shoots the imagery, then licenses it to other brands via Getty.
National Farmer's Day gave the second phase a news peg beyond the media bubble.
What you can take
If research says your audience is invisible, show up where the blindness lives — the medium is the argument.
Since then
The campaign rolls out to additional markets around October 12, 2026. The Repicturing Rural collection continues to grow through the Modern Rural Collective, with Getty positioning it as trusted visual content for brands targeting rural audiences.
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