Marketing is simply a form of communication between producers and customers. It helps to sell products or services to the end consumer, and covers product development, packaging design, advertising, PR, direct marketing, sales promotion and other forms of communication.
Without marketing, consumers may be unaware of a product. Marketing helps to make people aware of the product (e.g. Pampered Pigs) and communicate the benefits of buying it (e.g. higher animal welfare).
This section contains FREE advice on marketing for farmers. Please let us know any feedback so that we can improve the site.
This is where we despair....why, oh, why are there so many membership-based models in farming? From trade associations to regional food groups, you name it, they are everywhere. So let's start with some basics:
1. Farmer brands
- are owned by farmers (or a farmer co-operative)
- are marketed by farmers
- return profits directly back to the farm business through increased sales (i.e. volume) or higher farmgate prices (i.e. value).
Examples of farmer brands are Tyrrells crisps and Wyld Meadow Lamb. Somerset brie and Farmers Best are farmer co-op owned brands.
2. These are not farmer-owned brands...
- The Little Red Tractor (owned by the NFU and run by Assured Food Standards)
- LEAF symbol (owned by LEAF)
- Organic symbol (owned by the Soil Association)
- Taste of the West
- Tastes of Anglia
- The National Trust
- The Duchy of Cornwall
They are all schemes or marques owned by other organisations. They provide collaborative ventures. But by their very nature, membership-based organisations are incapable of conducting marketing activity for individual farm businesses or brands. They may provide valuable business-to-business services, as well as customer assurance that the produce has met certain production standards, but they do not deliver profits directly back to the farm business in the same way as products owned and marketed by the farmer or farmer co-op.
These trade association or membership brands may have a positive 'umbrella effect' for the whole industry, but the product criteria and advertising messages are controlled by other people. So, farmers still need their own brands in order to communicate their own messages and respond to new market conditions. For example, the Soil Association organic symbol was happily endorsing Brazilian beef sold in supermarkets in 2005. At that time, farmers up and down the country were protesting about the importing of Brazilian beef from an area infected with FMD. The Brazilian beef met Soil Association organic-production standards, but British farmers had no way of communicating the differences in production standards between British and Brazilian beef to the consumer. Farmers had no brands of their own. There were no advertisements in the papers highlighting the differences in production. Farmers could only stand outside shops and protest.
Membership organisations all need money to help fund their own structures (e.g. pay for salaries and any new initiatives), but they do not return any of the marketing profits back to a farm business. In other words, if their name increases in awareness, reputation and value, that still has no financial benefit for farmers.
To illustrate this, following FMD, the South West Regional Development Agency (SWRDA) gave thousands of pounds in grants towards supermarket own-label marketing projects, to (in theory) help farmers. Lloyd Maunder worked with Sainsbury's to establish a West Country own-label lamb brand. Sainsbury's owned the brand and used it for its own business advantage. Sainsbury's subsequently dropped its contract with Lloyd Maunder in 2005. Lloyd Maunder announced the closure of its lamb-processing business at the start of 2006 and hundreds of West Country farmers were left with no brand and no way of marketing their product. If these farmers had been encouraged to set up their own SW brand of lamb under a farmer co-op arrangement in response to increased consumer demand for locally sourced produce, then they could have taken this brand to new retailers in the area and gained a price advantage. Instead, the SW lamb flooded the commodity market again and brought down local prices. By contrast, when Golden Wonder closed down, the Pringles brand immediatley attracted many buyers.
We recommend that farmers develop their own 'farmer-owned brands'. Wyld Meadow Lamb is a good example of a farmer-owned brand, established by Clive and Jo Sage. Dairy Farmers of Britain, the farmer-owned milk co-op, has recently developed its own brands of milk called Definitely Yorkshire, Definitely Cheshire and Farmers Best.
Write a marketing brief
Before meeting the brand design, advertising, PR or direct marketing agency, write a marketing brief. The marketing brief is essential. It provides the agency with an outline business plan and an agreed contract to work to. Without a good marketing brief, the work is less likely to go to plan. The advertising agencies will either ‘go off brief’, or the working relationship may become fraught with people disagreeing on what has been said or done.
The marketing brief is equivalent to an architect’s drawings. Instructing someone to build a four-bedroom house only by verbal instructions over the telephone might end up with a few surprises. In the same way, advertising can go in a multitude of different directions. Even if the end result wasn’t what you had in mind, the work still has to be paid for. This can be costly and is easily avoided by writing a good marketing brief.
The marketing brief also demonstrates that you are serious about the project. There is no harm in asking the agency for feedback and questions on the brief. These can then be incorporated into the proposals and documented. But it should be noted that, like builders, agencies juggle several projects at any one time and may put some work on hold if something else comes up. A well-written marketing brief helps to focus the agencies on any date deadlines and ensure that the work is scheduled in. As a result, the work is more likely to be delivered on time and on brief.
The marketing brief should include:
1. Company details
Who is involved with the project and who is responsible for making any decisions. In other words, who owns the project and who is in charge. Several people may be involved and someone from outside the working group may want to have the final say, but the marketing agencies need to know who is responsible for making any decisions. The decision-making process also needs to be built into their time schedules.
2. Product details
This section should provide as much information about the product as possible.
For example, specifically for beef:
- Type of product (e.g. breed of cattle)
- Sales volume (i.e. number of cattle, cuts of meat)
- Sales value (i.e. price points)
- Production method (e.g. grass-fed, slow-matured, local abattoir)
- Product qualities (e.g. eating quality, high in XYZ minerals)
- Any other points of interest (e.g. append any research studies)
3. Target Audience
Who is the customer that you want to buy your product. Specifically:
- Gender
- Age
- Family status
- Existing purchase patterns for your product sector
- Attitude to food
- Attitude to your product (awareness, knowledge and perceptions)
This will start to identify any barriers that exits for consumers to buying your product.
4. Competitors
Provide details of any competitors in the marketplace. Who are they, how big are they and how do they currently market and distribute their products? Who is the biggest threat to your business?
5. Distribution
What are your proposed distribution routes to market? How does this effect your long-term sales plans?
6. Marketing requirements
Provide details of what you would like the agency to do and when. This could include:
- Initial concept ideas to fully worked-up artwork
- Recommendations on how to research and evaluate the work
- Request ideas on how they would approach this project differently
Give your project a working title
It is also useful to give your marketing brief a project name (e.g. Project Jump). This working title can then be used to brief all third-party advertising agencies - it helps them to:
- Know which project they are referring to until a brand name has been agreed
- Deliver successful new brands and creative work
- Maintain any confidentiality agreements
By providing a neutral project name as a working title, it allows the creative staff within the agency to keep an open mind when developing new brand names. This also helps to prevent moderators from steering consumer research in the wrong direction, as they are not so influenced by existing product descriptions.
Hire a brand marketing consultant
Finally, if you really don’t know where to start with the marketing brief, then hire a marketing consultant for 1-2 days' work. The marketing consultant can then be tasked with writing the marketing brief, in the same way that architects draw up the plans to build a house. But don’t confuse a marketing consultant with an agricultural consultant. The two are very different. Agricultural consultants tend to have production and distribution skills (often found at the Oxford Farming Conference wearing blue striped shirts). The majority of marketing consultants have never been near a farm and have only worked in advertising agencies or marketing consultancies.
Finally, marketing is fun, inventive and innovative. It gives you freedom to be creative and say what you want. Advertising agencies love breaking the rules, so it's much better than talking to DEFRA.
There are hundreds of ways for farmers to:
- Promote the benefits of farming
- Educate consumers about how their food is produced
- Build a positive image of farmers
- Generate greater support for farming from the public, opinion-formers and hence MPs
No-one is currently doing this well, so anything that farmers do themselves will make a huge difference.
10 easy things to do:
Posters are one of the earliest forms of advertising. Posters pre-date TV, radio and cinema advertising, and are an excellent way to get a message across. Information on farm signs aimed at walkers, or large roadside posters aimed at drivers, provide very low-cost options. Farms that border villages, towns or public footpaths could easily use home-made posters to communicate with the public by following just a few simple rules:
1. Posters in farmers' fields
• Make it big
- Traditional roadside posters are 20’ x 10’ (48 sheets)
- Major roadside posters are 40’ x 10’ (96 sheets)
- One large/enormous poster will attract more attention than 20 small ones
- Make the words as big as possible so that anyone can read it
- Imaginative statues and structures are even better (e.g. Camel and Willow Man on the M5, straw statues on A303)
- Use farmers' fields beside major roads, schools, hospitals or railways
- Posters do not have to 'ruin the countryside' if you use natural creative approaches (e.g. carved wood or straw bales)
- Tenant farmers may need to get the landowner's permission. But if the landowner will not oblige, find a field owned by another farmer and use this
The recent publicity about the negative impact of advertising in farmers' fields is quite right. The CPRE has been running a campaign to get rid of unattractive advertising for bathrooms, MacDonalds and other corporates. But farmers are allowed to educate the public using their own land, and put up temporary posters for rural shows. In addition, tasteful and attractive structures can enhance the countryside and are extremely popular with the public.
• Five words only
- Make the messages clear and simple
- Use under five words
- Use positive messages about farming or funny comments about the problem
- A great example of a farmer's poster, written in big white letters on an old muck-spreader, is ‘Government Think Tank’.
• Prime locations
- Posters placed along the major roads are very powerful
- Or use other major public corridors (e.g. railways) and outside events (e.g. concerts) to reach people
- Use existing structures as well (e.g. grain stores or barn doors)
• Humour works
- If you make people laugh, they remember what you have said for longer
- Avoid swear words and crude jokes. Both are unacceptable and will offend rather than impress
- Avoid exclamation marks. If you need to use them, the message isn’t good enough
• Flatter your audience
- Always respect who you are talking to (i.e. the target audience).
- Do not undermine your audience (e.g. only one in three adults know how potatoes are grown) and test the message out on other people first.
- Only undermine your competitors (e.g. cheap foreign imports)
• Be positive, not negative
- Promote the good points (e.g. your farm). But don’t do this by knocking other farmers
- Undermining neighbouring farmers leaves a nasty taste in the mouth
- This approach indicates self-interest and weakens the message
- It is fine to be rude about the Government and other companies, but not about other farmers
2. Informative farm signage
• Any location
- Footpaths, parking places and roadside fields provide excellent places to communicate with the public
• Home-made signs
- Get the kids to paint information on plywood to explain ‘how food is produced’ or ‘what is being grown’ for walkers and urban households:
'Summer crop of Wilja potatoes.'
'Spring barley harvested in Sept for real ale.'
'Oil-seed rape grown for energy fuel.'
'Wheat for bread and biscuit flour.'
• Copy good ideas
- Many companies have developed successful ways to communciate with the general public. All these techniques can be copied.
- English Heritage uses large-scale maps to explain about the historical landscape at key locations. Farmers could use laminated OS maps on wooden boards to educate the consumer about the farm landscape
- Farm shops provide signage on seasonal produce. All farms could do the same for their crops being grown
- Local councils provide detailed planning application notices on yellow laminated paper pinned to posts or trees. Farmers could provide information about their farm (e.g. how crops are being grown or what to look out for) in the same way. For example:
3. Messages on lorries, barns and grain silos
The same rules as posters, but on anything visible.
4. Live radio phone-ins
- Radio stations provide free air time via phone-ins
- There are several live phone-ins on national and local radio stations every day. So, each day presents a new opportunity
- Farmers can talk to millions of people just by picking up the phone
- Farmers can help to educate the nation about what farmers do all day (e.g. the highs and the lows of farming) by providing an insight into the daily life of ordinary farmers. This could be through anecdotes or amusing stories. For example, Radio One – Jo Wylie's show 'What Rocks and What Sucks.' For example:
"1,000 hectares of wheat ready to harvest…its just started raining, so I can’t get combining."
"Two lovely new calves born on the farm today… tested for TB and got a positive reactor."
5. Contact national newspaper journalists
- Get to know a couple of journalists from other areas of the paper (e.g. news, consumer affairs, environment, health)
- Contact them when something happens that effects their readers (e.g. no longer able to guarantee a supply of fresh milk from farms in their area because too many farms closing down, cheap chickens are being imported from China)
- Journalists are not interested in sob stories about farmers going out of business, lots of people lose their jobs every day. But they are interested in stories that may effect their readers’ lives. So, the story must be presented from this angle (e.g. the local abattoir is closing down, so readers will no longer be able to buy local beef; or when the farm goes out of business, the farmland will be sold off to property developers)
- Take a photo of something interesting and send it to the national newspaper
- Don't despair if the story doesn't run. Just keep trying. Keep finding new contacts. And find people you like talking to
- Read the national newspapers and make a note of the journalists that write good pieces. Contact them when you are in a good mood to find out what they write about. Don't ring them when they are really busy (afternoons and evenings), or when you are in a bad mood about something. Ask them if they are interested in farming stories
- If not, try someone else. If you have a story, send the details by email or post. Don't write the story yourself, just provide the bare facts
- If you don't want to be named in the article, let the journalist know each time you speak to them
- Offer to help the journalists find other farmers who will endorse your story or be named in the paper
- Link up with other farmers to provide several angles on the same story. This may help the journalist to sell the story to their editor
6. Contact TV programme-makers
- Get to know the BBC and programme-developers (e.g. phone the switchboard or ask for a tour)
- Do the same for the independent TV companies. Make a note of the company name at the end of programmes for ITV or C4 and then contact them
- Think up ways to get positive farming stories onto TV programmes. Some suggestions are:
- Keep finding new people in the TV industry to talk to
- Find out who develops the programmes you like and contact them. Ask them if they thought about a programme on dairy farming, growing fruit, growing vegetables etc.
- Offer to help the TV programme-makers find farmers who would be good on TV
7. Give a talk
- Offer to do a talk at the local school, WI or church about the farming calendar
8. Leverage the county shows
- Invite journalists from the national media to the county shows and show them around the livestock and local food areas
- Encourage the county show organisers to use more engaging comperes at the showground to attract the public to the main farming areas (these are currently under-exploited). This could even include celebrities. The French do this very well at SIA by providing escorted tours and information leaflets, as well as professional speakers to introduce the animals and events in the main ring. They create a huge buzz of excitement among audiences as a result. There is no doubt that farming is much more greatly valued by the wider French public as a result
9. Car stickers
- Make your own messages out of laminated coloured paper
- Use the local library computer or local school children if you don't have access to PowerPoint computer programmes at home
10. Run a competition
- This could be with the local radio station, newspaper, school or youth club
- Offer prizes and fun things to do related to farming
- Consider reaching the urban areas (e.g. London) via local or national radio stations (e.g. Capital Radio or Classic FM) and offering prizes from a group of farmers (e.g. B&B holidays, local farm-produce hampers)
Finally, there is no point hiding behind other organisations. If farmers want the benefits of better PR for farmers, then farmers need to do this themselves.
If you fill out subscription forms and state that you work in marketing, you should receive free copies.
1.Use the industry bodies to find out who does what.
Institute Practitioners in Advertising
Institute Practitioners in Advertising for advertising and media agencies
www.IPA.co.uk
or call 020 7235 7020
Association of Publishing Agencies (APA)
Association of Publishing Agencies for customer publishing (i.e. marketing magazines and literature)
www.apa.co.uk
or call 020 7404 4166
Periodical Publishers Association (PPA)
Periodical Publishers Association for magazine publishers (i.e. newstand magazines such as Good Housekeeping and Country Life)
www.ppa.co.uk
or call 020 7404 4166
Direct Marketing Association (DMA)
Direct Marketing Association for direct marketing agencies (e.g. direct mail)
www.DMA.org.uk
or call 020 7291 3300
Internet Advertising Bureau UK
Internet Advertising Bureau UK for online marketing (i.e. websites and viral campaigns)
www.iab.net
Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR)
Chartered Institute of Public Relations for PR agencies (i.e. news stories)
www.ipr.org.uk
or call 020 7766 3333
Market Research Society (MRS)
Market Research Society for market research companies (i.e. surveys)
www.MRS.org.uk
or call 020 7490 4911
Design Business Association (DBA)
Design Business Association for packaging and design
www.dba.org.uk
or call 020 7251 9229
2.Visit two to three top 20 agencies
Ask to meet the new business director for a coffee or lunch (you’ll need to pay for this) and have a tour of the agency.
Find out what type of work they do, who they work for and how they charge for the work (e.g. day rates, flat fee or commission). Avoid the agencies that are working for any of your major competitors, remembering that supermarket own-label is also a competitor.
3.Employ the best
The best people tend to work in the top agencies or new start-up/expanding companies. Find out which are the best agencies for each discipline. Some of the leading agencies (e.g. Saatchi & Saatchi, M&C Saatchi, BBH, BMP) may work for you if you have a good product and they believe that they can produce ‘award-winning’ creative work. This means that you don't always need to be a well-known company with a multimillion-pound budget.
Alternatively, many of the leading creative teams work as freelancers or for smaller companies, and can be employed on a project-by-project or day-rate basis. Freelancers can be found be asking around or by emailing us.
The assurance schemes developed by the levy bodies can never deliver this innovation, as they aim to satisfy the majority of producers and only act as a baseline for quality attributes. They are also owned by external bodies to the farm business, so any marketplace value can never be transferred back to the farmer. Farm assurance schemes are not brands and offer no marketing value to farmers. Brands developed by farmer-owned co-ops can deliver value back to the farmer
Do:
Don’t:
If you want to find out about the size and value of the market for your product (eg. butter) we recommend that you read a report on the sector first (eg. UK Yellow Fats). Reports cover almost every food sector and can be bought off-the-shelf from a number of different research companies. Ask your levy body to send them to you first of all, as they may be free.
Mintel
An independent research company that provides market reports by sector (eg. dairy products) and consumer trends (eg. healthy eating). These are essential for background marketplace analysis. Ask for a full list of published reports or call 020 7606 4533.
Datamonitor
Similar to Mintel, Datamonitor provides market reports on all aspects of the marketplace. Call 020 7675 7000 for a list of their published reports.
Verdict
Retail analysts that provide in-depth market reports on the retail industry. Call 020 7675 7701 for a list of their published reports.
Taylor Nelson Sofres
TNS measures actual purchases of food and packaged goods for most of the markets world-wide. Information is collected from households using purchase diaries or electronic barcoded scanning devices. Many of the reports can be bought off-the-shelf or call 020 8967 0007.
The world works better through co-operation, not corporations
Farmers have taken their produce to local markets for many centuries. In Poland, where retailers are less dominant, 40% of fresh produce is still sold via traditional markets and there is a huge variety of fresh fruit, meat, salads and vegetables for consumers to buy. By 2004, only 1% of fresh produce was sold via traditional markets in the UK, as most of them had been wiped out by central supermarket distribution centres. Supermarkets demand direct supply and are increasingly demanding solus supply contracts. In other words, suppliers are only allowed to supply one supermarket. Farmers and suppliers have to send their fresh fruit and vegetables direct to the vast warehouses of the supermarket national distribution system, making little room in the marketplace for traditional markets to operate. As a result, the traditional fruit and vegetable markets have almost disappeared in the UK. There are fewer and fewer routes to market for smaller volume products (i.e. local food). London street fruit sellers say that the Covent Garden market is not what it used to be, as it "only sells the rejected imported produce the supermarkets don’t want. This is then hoovered up by the London market stallholders and other London shops."
The first farmers’ market was started in Bristol in 1997. Numbers grew rapidly to 470 by 2003 in response to consumer demand for fresh, seasonal, local and fully traceable produce.
Farmers’ markets are temporary retail sites, often in traditional market towns or villages, run by farmers or local authorities. They are open for about for four to five hours on the market day, as the stalls need to be set up and cleared away again.
There is continuing demand for more farmers’ markets, market days and stallholders - consumers want to buy from farmers. This has led to a number of farmers’ markets being set up in major city centres (e.g. BBC White City, Shepherd’s Bush) where people have limited access to fresh, local produce. This was highlighted in a report by London Food Links called Capital Eats
This report found that Londoners spend £1 billion on food each year. However, it also highlighted the lack of access to nutritious food for people on low incomes. It showed that 53 per cent of inner-London children and 33 per cent of outer-London children live below the poverty line, while 13 wards in east London boroughs were identified as ‘food deserts’ where there was no local provision for fresh food.
There is also demand for more farmers’ markets from farmers wanting to earn a viable return for their produce. More than 3,000 farmers sell their produce via farmers’ markets and there is a long waiting list of many more wanting to become stallholders. There were 25 farmers were on the waiting list for Bridport farmers’ market in March 2006.
Provenance – knowing where the food has come from and how it was produced - is an important part of the philosophy.
FARMA is the largest farmer co-operative, representing direct sales to consumers via farmers’ markets, farm shops, home-delivery box schemes, on-farm catering and farm entertainment. FARMA resulted from the merger in 2003 of the National Association of Farmers’ Markets (NAFM) and the Farm Retail Association (FRA). However, not all farmers’ markets are members of FARMA and many are run by their own dedicated teams.
For a guide to all UK farmers’ markets in 2005 see the FARMA website guide produced in conjunction with Country Life butter www.farma.org.uk.
Fred McCaig, Local Food and Farming Consultant.
Fred has worked at many farmers’ markets in the West Country and was responsible for their development while at Devon Food Links, to help deliver regional Local Authority outputs. Fred has a good understanding of their advantages and disadvantages from a farmer's perspective and has provided some useful advice and tips below:
"Farmers’ markets are a very useful way to break into the market for new products. They provide a network of customers that will, if satisfied, deliver the most cost-effective method of promotion and recommendation."
What consumers look for at farmers’ markets
The majority want:
What farmers need to know:
You need to have the following as a stallholder:
This is the bare minimum and will cost about £150, but it is possible to spend a great deal more. It is worth noting that Environmental Health Officers are starting to insist that producers provide refrigerated displays where appropriate and hand-washing facilities. When selling perishable or 'high risk' products, it is worth discussing your activity with the Environmental Health Officer at your local authority. The bottom line is that you are taking on the responsibility of selling a product to a customer and will therefore have to follow the rules. To try to operate under the radar is:
Before signing up to a farmers’ market, it is worthwhile:
1. Visiting it to see the action:
2. Helping out on a stand to gain experience.
3. Developing your stand and doing a rehearsal to:
4. Deciding what to do if you:
The benefits of operating at farmers' markets can be great. They can be an important stepping-stone in the process of building a strong relationship with your customers.
To discuss this and other topics about direct selling to customers, contact:
Fred McCaig on 0777 909 2107
Would you like to conduct a survey?
We can help you to:
- design the questions
- find a research company
- publish the findings
Would you like to interview some customers?
We can help you to:
- conduct focus groups
- set up telephone or face-to-face interviews
- test your product and get feedback on it
Would you like to know about the market for your product?
We can help you to:
- analyse the marketplace
- source independent market reports (e.g. Mintel)
- find out about competitors
Email us at info@britishagriculturemarketing.co.uk
Farming Industry Marketing Strategy
Commissioned by the Tenant Farmers Association (TFA) and National Beef Association (NBA) this report published in Jan 2005, provides a comprehensive review of the UK food and farming marketplace. It highlights the key issues blocking the industry and provides some practical advice on how farmers can overcome them.
The main advertising media channels are press, TV, posters, radio, cinema and online.
Direct marketing includes direct mail, door drops and inserts.
Working with the media
The media provides a very effective way of reaching large numbers of people with simple messages about your business.
Many people turn to advertising as a quick and easy way of getting into the media, but they often do not realise that much more can be achieved - at a fraction of the cost - through a good press release sent to a number of media outlets.
Regular appearances in the media can help to boost sales or shape opinion but, more importantly, they also help people to build up a clearer idea of what your business is really about.
Below are ten tips designed to help you get the most out of working with the media:
1. Know what you want to get out of it
You might want to send a press release to:
Whatever your reason, knowing what you want out of the experience, both short and long term, helps remind you why you are bothering and gives you a much clearer focus for interviews.
2. Start local
Your local media is a great place to start. It will help you to reach your nearest customers and is also a good place to practice your skills before taking on national or trade media. Where appropriate, use radio phone-ins to voice your opinion. Many newspapers are connected - so what starts out as a local story can sometimes become a national story.
3. Learn what the media wants
Spend time listening to, watching and reading the media you want to work with. Knowing the kinds of stories they carry - and the reporters who produce them - helps you to understand what their audience might be interested in from your business.
4. Write a press release
A good press release is the vital tool for distributing your message widely. Most news articles are written in a formulaic way and you should try and match this with your press release.
Your press release should get straight to the point - answering who, what, when, where and why in the first 30 to 40 word scentence. Expand the story in the next 400 to 600 words keeping the single-paragraph scentence about the same length as the first. Don't fall into the trap of over-puffing the story or it is most likely to be deleted.
Your press release should also include:
Most news desks rely on e-mail to receive their news releases. Send the releases as black text with little formatting. Do not attach any images or logos to your press release. Wait until you are asked to send them in.
5. Make contact
Most journalists get annoyed with repeated phone calls. So if you do call them, check they received the press release, or give them more information but keep it brief. Most deadlines fall in the afternoon so it is best to call reporters in the morning. Or ask if they are on deadline and when you could call them back.
6. Availability
News happens quickly and reporters work to very tight deadlines. If they have questions it is vital that you are available to speak to them. Give them a mobile number so they can reach you and make sure you call them back if you say you will. If you don't, they may not carry your story and may think twice next time you contact them. If it is a big story expect the phone calls and media interest to continue for a couple of days.
7. Interviews
If you do get asked to give a radio or TV interview, think of three simple things (or more) you want to tell to people at home. You can count your interview as a success if you get them across.
You will need to ask the reporter or producer:
For the interview:
Record your interview so that you can make it even better next time.
8. Pictures
Line-ups, uncomfortable handshakes and boring plaque unveilings are all complete no-nos for press photographers. Remember that most pictures in papers are of people. If you don't have good pictures of your own, let the reporter know what good picture opportunities are available to them and they may send someone down. Photographs or children and animals at an event are great - but you will need to make sure (through the teacher) that the necessary permissions have been signed. For TV, think about what moving pictures they cold film in advance.
9. Learn to live with headlines
Headlines can often be painful reading. The journalist who has written the story does not usually write the headline. It is often worth thinking of headlines as 'read me' flags sat on top of your article. If it gets people reading as they flick through the paper, the headline is usually worth living with.
10. Troubleshooting
Having a well-written, well thought-out press release is the first and best line of defence against something going wrong. If you are being interviewed by a print journalist about a 'sticky' subject, ask for questions by e-mail, recount what you think you said by e-mail after you come off the phone, or ask the reporter what quotes they will use.
Before complaining about the article, get someone you know and trust to read through it and give you an honest opinion. The journalist may be able to answer immediate complaints or arrange a correction if a mistake has been made.
If you have been badly misquoted, misrepresented or have a complaint over the behaviour of the journalist contact the editor by letter. If the editor hasn't replied to you within a week or you are unhappy with his or her response, then write to the press complaint commission.
Andrew McLaughlin has worked as a journalist and press officer for more than ten years. He runs a part-time PR service for farmers, producers and independent retailers in the food sector. He is available for consultancy and small PR projects. Contact him via email apposite@hotmail.co.uk.
Two companies control the sale of cinema air-time, Carlton Screen Advertising and Pearl & Dean.
Airtime can be bought:
- Screen by screen
- In film packages
- Under an Audience Guarantee Plan
Cinema audience admission figures are provided by the Cinema Advertising Association.
There has been a huge growth in the number of websites. Online advertising has also increased. The Internet Advertising Bureau provides information on advertising revenue for banner advertising as well as search engines.
Its website IABUK also provides useful information about advertising online.
The outdoor advertising market covers four-sheet, six-sheet, 16-sheet, 48-sheet, 64-sheet and 96-sheet sized posters.
Outdoor posters are everywhere (e.g. by bus shelters, on roadsides, station platforms and petrol station forcourts).
Audiences are measured by POSTAR.
The main contractors are:
Clear Channel
JC Decaux
Primesight Ltd
Maiden Outdoor
Sheetbroadcast
The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) provides certified circulation figures for newspapers (national and regional) and magazines (consumer and business-to-business), as well as exhibition attendance figures.
For the published information, simply click on the following links:
Or visit ABC
Daily Quality Newspapers
Daily Telegraph (904,955)
The Financial Times (423,874)
The Guardian (378,618)
The Herald (76,215)
The Independent (261,193)
The Scotsman (67,243)
The Times (692,581)
Daily Mid-Market
Daily Express (842,145)
Daily Mail (2,369,698)
Daily Popular
Daily Mirror (1,728,203)
Daily Record (460,240)
Daily Star (851,658)
Sun (3,274,855)
Sunday Quality
The Independent on Sunday (211,693)
The Business (186,481)
The Observer (439,935)
Scotland on Sunday (82,471)
Sunday Herald (58,222)
Sunday Telegraph (682,114)
The Sunday Times (1,365,042)
Sunday Mid-Market
Sunday Express (883,993)
Mail on Sunday (2,294,134)
Sunday Popular
Daily Star Sunday (416,501)
News of the World (3,712,930)
Sunday Mail (552,842)
Sunday Mirror(1,501,457)
The People (920,511)
Sunday Sport (153,238)
National and local radio station audiences are measured by RAJAR. The RAJAR website provides useful information on these radio stations.
Television audiences are measured by the Broadcasters Audience Research Board. The
BARB website provides useful information on audience viewing levels for both terrestrial and satellite channels.
Other people we recommend to farmers for help and advice are listed here. We do not take a fee for any recommendations.
Fred McCaig has worked with a vast range of small to medium-sized food and drink businesses from beer to beef, farmers' markets to food festivals (e.g. Devon celebration of food).
He has a good working knowledge of public funding schemes (e.g. RES) the rules that govern their use, as well as their limitations. Fred has developed a wide network of contacts within agencies that are worth listening to (e.g. Natural England) as well as producers that have taken the plunge and recognised the value of their products, and that are now seeing the returns (e.g. Blackdown Hills area).
Working with British Agriculture Marketing, Fred has contributed to the discussions and work with his experience and knowledge of the strategies and organisations that are tasked to support the farming sector. His experience includes:
If you would like to contact Fred direct, note that we do not take not fee for this recommendation.
Call Fred McCaig on 0777 909 2107
Philippa Jones, a food and farming journalist currently based in Brussels, is passionate about local food. She specialises in EU issues and has a good understanding of French policy, having lived in Paris and Montpellier. Philippa studied French/German at Cambridge University and the Sorbonne, so is a very good contact for anyone wanting to get the EU perspective. We met Philippa when she was Press Officer (Food, Farming and Nature Conservation) for The National Trust and have stayed in contact since. Philippa has written a short piece below on the French market to highlight some differences compared to the UK. For example, most people in Britain are probably not aware that the French supermarkets have for many years, been banned from advertising on national TV to protect local shops.
UK customers must follow French example
France is held up by many Brits as a model in local food promotion. Walk into any French village and most likely there will be a boucherie, boulanngerie and fromagerie. Walk into one of France's giant hypermarkets and hidden among the ubiquitous brands lurk a plethora of local specialities. Even products at the cheaper end of the market proudly declare themselves French. But how do the French really support local food?
Even before stepping into a shop, it's easy to see the difference between the French supermarket leader, Carrefour and Tesco, the infamous UK giant. Click onto Tesco's website and a cold corporate sentence explains that: "In the UK, Tesco stocks moer than 7,000 local products. All products are labelled with the country of origin and, where appropriate, with national flags."
One click further and Carrefour.fr opens up a colourful map of France that shows how its shops sell robust bottles of St. Emilion made from grapes grown outside Bordeaux, tasty chunks of Cantal cheese from the hills of the Auvergne and bags of spuds hoed from northern fields near Lille.
This may be clever marketing, but it immediately proves that Carrefour has to sell, and promote, French products to be successful; all Tesco has to do is reduce the price.
French and food
The French may have the reputation of being a nation of gourmets, but the constraints of modern living mean their interest in food is waning. A survey carried out by the European Union found that less than half of the French population would be prepared to pay more for better quality food.
But even if they want cheap food and are happy to buy ready-meals and the like in the same way as their British counterparts, they still want to buy French cheese, wine and meat. And Carrefour believes it should tell its customers not only whether their strawberries come from France or Morocco, but the region in which they were grown.
This kind of marketing is far from perfect from the farmer's point of view. Carrefour's products, like those marketed throughout France by the independent 'Label Rouge' scheme, the sticker of which supposedly indicates traceability, often fail to mention the name of the farmer or the address of his farm. Instead, he can be traced – eventually – from a number on the packet. But it is a better solution than nothing for keeping some kind of link between the producer and the consumer.
Co-operative help
Moreover, the need to identify food as both French and conforming to particular quality standards means that co-operatives are stronger in France than they are in the UK. They often take the lead in promoting core food products such as fruit, vegetables and milk through their regional committees.
The regional agricultural committees are funded by the national government. It is, however, difficult to work out exactly how much is spent on what, as there are no national campaigns and so the money is filtered down to the committees via the regional authorities, and then doled out between local agricultural groups.
Some committees carry out small-scale promotions involving individual producers, but it is much easier – and more cost-efficient – to promote mainstream products such as fruit, vegetables, milk, cheese and beef, because these producers already tend to work together in networks, overseen by a single co-operative. Farmers who want to market rare breeds of meat, for example, often find themselves outside these networks and with less marketing support.
Legal protection
This is a minor problem, though, compared to the recent change to the law that means that for teh first time since 1996, local shops are beginning to lose the legal protection they have been afforded against the supermarkets.
Changing attitudes of French consumers and increasing pressure from the hypermarkets, which want to be able to compete on low-price policies like their UK counterparts, have led to the rewriting of the so-called 'loi Gallard'.
The law ('loi') was designed to protect smaller distributors and local shops from the overpowering force of the hypermarket by banning retailers from selling branded foods below the supplier's list price. This prevented retailers from passing on volume discounts and other supplier rebates to consumers, and meant that retail prices in France remained higher for some goods than in neighbouring countries.
Price cuts and advertising
When Nicholas Sarkozy, the politician likely to be the centre-right candidate to succeed President Jacques Chirac when he finally steps down next year, became finance minister, he decided that the way to kick-start a flailing French economy was to give retailers more power to reduce prices and encourage customer spending.
Consequently, since January 2006, retailers have had the right to give back to the consumer some of the profits that were previously split between the supplier and the retailer. The consequences of these changes are not yet clear, but it is certain that prices will take a tumble and suppliers are likely to suffer.
Customers around France are being bombarded by slogans from the leading supermarkets promising price cuts and savings. At present, these reductions are primarily pasted on billboards and posted through doors in free magazines, but all this is set to change on 1 January 2007, when for the first time since 1992, supermarkets will be allowed to advertise on terrestrial television.
They, like all retailers, will not be able to promote short-lived special offers, but they will have the chance to sell their image, no doubt of cheap, quality goods, to their consumers. Until now, their visual advertising power has been limited to cable and satellite channels.
French patriotism
Sarkozy said that he wanted to see a 2% reduction in the price of leading brand products. The government is now saying that it wants this momentum to continue until June 2007, when it hopes prices will be 5% lower than when Sarkozy made his initial demand in June 2004.
For prices to fall, somebody obviously has to earn less and it is likely to be French farmers; they have to hope that simple French chauvinism will get them through and keep local shops and products alive. France's various systems to promote local food are far from perfect, but at least they exist. British farmers need their customers to start kicking up a fuss and demanding Welsh lamb, Somerset Cheddar and Kent apples before the UK's supermarket shelves are cleared of British products and the local shop has all but disappeared.
If you would like to contact Philippa, her email address is philippa.jones@yahoo.co.uk
She has published several articles in the Farmers' Guardian, Farmers' Weekly, Agra Europe and You Are What You Eat, and works on a freelance basis.
We came across Rose via an email following an article in the Guardian and share much common ground.
Rose has a very good understanding of the power stuctures within the food and drink industry, having worked on developing local/sustainanable food supply-projects for over four years. Rose lives in the Yorkshire region and already has her own website, so you can see for yourself what she is about if you click here
Her areas of expertise include:
If you would like to contact Rose direct, be aware that we do not take a fee for this recommendation.
Rose Bridger is on 01484 326886 or 07779 137 522. Email Rosebridger@ntlworld.com
National Newspapers
The Daily Telegraph 020 7538 5000
Financial Times 020 7873 3000
The Guardian 020 7278 2332
The Herald 0141 302 7000
The Independent 020 7005 2000
The Scotsman 0131 620 8620
The Times 020 7782 5000
Daily Express 0871 434 1010
Daily Mail 020 7938 6000
Daily Mirror 020 7293 3000
Daily Record 020 7293 3000
Daily Star 020 7922 2709
The Sun 020 7782 4000
Independent on Sunday 020 7005 2000
The Business 020 7961 0000
The Observer 020 7611 9111
Scotland on Sunday 0131 620 8620
The Sunday Telegraph 020 7538 5000
The Sunday Times 020 7782 4000
The Sunday Express 0871 434 1010
The Mail on Sunday 020 7938 6000
Daily Star Sunday 0871 434 1010
News of the World 020 7782 4000
Sunday Mail 020 7293 3000
Sunday Mirror 020 7293 3000
The People 020 793 3000
Sunday Sport 0116 269 4892
This section contains links to marketing trade associations.
Institute Practitioners in Advertising
Institute Practitioners in Advertising for advertising and media agencies
or call 020 7235 7020
Association of Publishing Agencies(APA)
Association of Publishing Agencies for customer publishing (ie. marketing magazines and literature)
or call 020 7404 4166
Periodical Publishers Association(PPA)
Periodical Publishers Association for magazine publishers (ie. newstand magazines such as Good Housekeeping and Country Life)
or call 020 7404 4166
Direct Marketing Association (DMA)
Direct Marketing Association for direct marketing agencies (eg. direct mail)
or call 020 7291 3300
Internet Advertising Bureau UK
Internet Advertising Bureau UK for online marketing (ie. websites and viral campaigns)
Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR)
Chartered Institute of Public Relations for PR agencies (ie. news stories)
or call 020 7766 3333
Market Research Society (MRS)
Market Research Society for market research companies (ie. surveys) or call 020 7490 4911
Design Business Association (DBA)
Design Business Association for packaging and design or call 020 7251 9229