Sequatchie Cove Farm Brand Strategy
A couple weeks after my blog entry on my inability to provide top notch strategy to my clients, I had to write up a “brand strategy” document for Sequatchie Cove Farm (SCF). And I thought I did a pretty good job within the limitations.
But the success of their farm is important to me personally — as much as the success of the brand is to me professionally. So I wanted to post the document here and use it as a reference tool: for those of you interested in learning a bit about how we do strategy here at the studio, but also for me to mine the brains of those of you who are more strategic thinkers than I. Please comment and critique.
But I will warn you — it is a bit long. I will try to break it up with pretty pictures.
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We have been working with SCF — Bill and Miriam Keener, Nathan and Padgett Arnold and Jim and Emily Wright and an assortment of interns — for around a year to help them think about how to develop a brand. They are a small local farm that cultivates a biodiverse environment. The health of the land, water, air, livestock, and humans are all linked inextricably, and they make farming decisions with this basic philosophy. They raise healthy fruit and vegetables, healthy and content animals in order to provide a product healthy for consumption, the environment, and the whole human ecology.
As you might guess, they don’t have a logo or promotional materials or packaging. And on top of that, they don’t really have a budget for them either.
This is the third of 3 documents we (Caleb Ludwick and I) have drafted for them so far. The first document was a report based on an extensive interview we did with them to learn about the farm, its goals and its potential audiences. The second document was a visual identity proposal with some packaging and promotion concepts. This document is a synthesis of the first two, but adds thoughts/reasons on how and why to implement the brand.
Let me know what you think.
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SEQUATCHIE COVE BRAND STRATEGY
Introduction
It has been quite some time since we started down the road toward creating a cohesive and recognizable Sequatchie Cove Farm “brand.” The process has not been unlike efforts of the Slow Food movement, our own sort of “Slow Design” approach — to let things develop slowly and more naturally than the typical American fastfood / email / FedEx /instantaneous results approach.
But along with this slower more organic approach, it is easy to forget what happened in earlier seasons to bring us to the place we are now. So let us do a little review.
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Brand Identity
We call it “brand” and “identity”, but it’s ultimately about communication
1. who you are
2. where you are going
3. what your customers know to expect when they see your name
And about communicating to a variety of audiences
Who share one thing in common… eating.
(as you might guess, that doesn’t really narrow it down)
So how do we create a design that captures and communicates so much?
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Sequatchie Cove Farm’s Brand Promise
(a short summary of our conversation about your core values, personality, and mission)
You already understand that “brand” means much more than simply a logo or messaging. That it involves every contact with every customer.
Because ultimately it involves the customer’s perception of who you are, and of what expectations and anticipation “Sequatchie Cove” brings to their minds.
Initial touchpoints:
“Every choice made on the farm must build community.”
When you talk about meat, you talk about the pastures and forests in which the animals live, what they eat and how they are treated. About keeping the cow or chicken or pig stress free throughout its whole life, respecting the animal for the sake of the animal itself, and of the whole farm.
“Art + science.”
“When I have a craving, I know what it is that I want because I grew up on the farm.”
Terroir: capturing the flavors of the land, the place-ness of the farm, in the same way that a wine can.
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To Whom Do You Make This Promise?
In the fifty miles around the farm, things are changing. People who live here are more open to your message than fifteen years ago. More and more people agree that good food = local, high quality, healthy, fresh.
Our taste is moving away from so-called “cheap” foods—that are only cheap if we look only at the price tag, with unseen heavy costs to the planet and our bodies. A Happy Meal starts to seem less than happy. Since we eat every day, we were told, less expensive and less hassle = good.
Today there is a growing group of people who say this is not acceptable. That food should not only taste as fresh and be as nutritious as possible, but that growing, making and eating good food can add value to life.
Searching out the best ingredients, then preparing and enjoying them can be a pleasure, rather than a bore or a chore.
Most of these people are aged 18-65, monied, a high percentage are women or their buying choices are influenced by women, professionally established, educated, like good food and know why they should do so.
Three categories:
Hard Core Organic, Ecoeaters - have highest expectations, want the most information
Lifestyle Shoppers - want to change their understanding of food and their habits
The Fast and the Curious - interested due to proximity, status or taste
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The Two Most Important Factors to Note
Essentially we are speaking to two basic, but very different groups:
1. Those familiar with the actual farm: its people, its animals and its place
2. Those (only) familiar with the idea of a local farm
Any brand identity we develop must must speak truthfully and compellingly to both of these distinct audiences.
For audience number 1, we must be extremely careful not to lose or misconstrue the very personal, small and local feel they know to be the people, animals, plants and land of Sequatchie Cove Farm.
For audience number 2, we must be sure to stand out in the cluttered 21st century marketplace: to look as different and distinct as the actual farm and its products.
Fortunately, from a design standpoint, we found a way to do both.
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Brand Design
For the Sequatchie Cove Farm logo, we decided to use an array of various different letterpress wood types.
The letterpress printed type communicate hand crafted artistry from an era gone by (much like small local farmers). The imperfection of the wood type indicates a warmth and humanity in its unpredictability. The changing typefaces indicate the changing nature of the farm, its products and its seasons.
The rustic and rugged look to the type is representative of the nature of the difficult work of farming. It also has a simple and humble connotation: like something we would find in a country store, not slick and polished like a corporation’s logo.
But the wood type is also strong, bold and easily visible in the overly-finished marketplace of grocery store brands. An added bonus to that fact that it truly embodies the spirit of Sequatchie Cove Farm: it stands in opposition and contrast to the teeming masses of over-produced groceries.
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The Voice of the Brand
Sequatchie Cove Farm is a place inhabited by many plants, animals and people. These multiple elements working in concert create the spirit of the farm. We feel that handwriting can be used as a visual tool to indicate these many distinct “voices.” At the same time, the general use of handwriting becomes recognizable as the unifying voice of the farm.
Within this framework, it will be easy to allow many voices to speak. We can pull excerpts from writing or spoken ideas from Ann, Bill, Miriam, Nathan, Padgett (and so on), about different aspects of products or of the farm itself. These tiny vignettes will give us insight into the life and output of the farm, over time.
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The Strategy for Implementation
Now that a visual design has been established for the Farm, we must go about deciding the best way to implement it — to get it out into the marketplace, in front of our desired audiences. The easiest strategy would involve developing a list of need items and then simply producing them. But unfortunately this involves a great deal of funds that are simply not available.
Just like planting season, we have to decide what things will bear the most fruit for the farm in later seasons.
After much discussion and thought we have developed this priority list of what to make and why:
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1. An Updated Web Site
Web sites have become the primary resource for information for your target audiences. Everyone from wealthy customers interested in sustainable food economies to other local farmers, everyone from cheese connoisseurs to environmentalists use the web to find information and to communicate.
We believe that by establishing a simple plan for members of the farm to contribute new information to the site on a regular basis (once a month) it can quickly become a resource for:
- your current customers
- potential customers wanting more information
- CSA offerings and updates
- Dancing Fern plant sales
- seasonal changes in produce
- other farmers seeking / giving advice on issues
- advocacy and philosophy of local farming
- promoting future offerings (eg the Dairy and the Cheese)
- and more!
By establishing an easily implemented and maintained “blog” section, all of this could start almost immediately. And an added plus is that we have someone who is happy to set it all up for in-kind trade.
Best of all is that this medium is flexible and dynamic, easily changed and updated for free. It creates an active, changing and worthwhile online community around the farm — serving current customers better and helping to identify new customers as well.
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2. General Information Brochure
This simple 4" x 9" card can house all the basic information on the farm. It can easily sit on a counter at Greenlife, fit in a back pocket or rest on a table at a farmer’s market. It can cover major talking points: what the farm is about, why it matters, where it is and how to find out more. It is easily portable and will serve as a major director to the web site.
These can produced economically in small runs (anywhere from 10 - 100) on a digital press on-demand.
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3. Tri-Tent Displays
These serve many of the same functions as the 4”x 9” card, but sit permanently on the meat counters of the Greenlife meat Department. As a result, they can go into more detail about the farm and its distinctiveness, its offerings and its nature.
These have already been produced and implemented at Greenlife.
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4. New Butcher Paper
We feel that your largest potential untapped audience is at Greenlife. The most readily available means we have to reach them and get their attention is at the meat counter. Greenlife has expressed willingness to wrap in and great fondness for the initial batch of butcher paper we supplied them. We feel that a large run would be cost-effective and attract a great deal of attention to the farm.
It also serves as a very clear distinction between Sequatchie Cove Farm’s meat and the other “white-butcher-paper-wrapped” offerings.
Our updated design highlights phrases that distinguish SCF meats, and provides contact info on the farm as well. Along with the brochure, these would serve to drive customers to the web site and hopefully the farm itself.
The single downside to this implementation is there are initial costs to printing 2500 sheets of color butcher paper — but they are reasonably affordable.
*with minor alterations, this same design could be made to serve as a wrapper for cheese in the future too.
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5. Recipe Cards
This is yet another promotion at the Greenlife meat counter, but it is distinct in that it promotes the local chefs/restaurants that are promoting you. This co-promotion not only brings goodwill from your chef-customers, but it will help increase awareness of places that offer your product besides Greenlife. And increased business for chefs offering your products could result in increased demand for your product.
On the other side, these cards are also intended to teach the supermarket audience about the value of less well known cuts of meat. The typical American knows how to cook a steak or filet mignon, but fewer know how to cook roasts, and even fewer know how to cook short ribs. By increasing this awareness, we hope to increase sales of more cuts of meat, and therefore lead to increased demand from Greenlife.
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6. Stickers
While stickers surely provide a “cool”, “activist” and “grassroots” slant on promotion, their return-on-investment is a little more dubious. While they certainly can attract attention and drive interest to the farm, they tend to interact with customers in places other than where they make food purchases (eg in stop and go traffic).
However, they can create a “buzz” of sorts.
Costs for 1 and 2-color durable and easily removable stickers are:
1 color: 500 = $177.27 1000 = 199.44
2 color: 500 = $258.46 1000 = 280.01
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7. Apparel
While t-shirts, caps and such are quite exciting and wonderful, their cost is very high (when compared to stickers or brochures per unit). Especially if we were to use organic cotton or bamboo shirts, our costs could easily $10/shirt and higher for quantities of 25 or more. Our recommendation is to wait on this investment until a later date.
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8. Other Implementation Strategies
There are of course many other methods to begin to get the Sequatchie Cove Farm brand out into the public and we hope to continue to explore all sorts of opportunities. Here are a few ideas that we have not explored, but should certainly be entertained in the future:
- advertising on WUTC (NPR) - perhaps share an ad with several other local food providers to defray costs?
- printed bags for CSA or general use
- standard old business cards
- fundraising dinners or Slow Food events, partnering with local chefs or caterers
- a schedule of press releases - on product offerings or news worthy stories
- partner in sponsoring Green Drinks?
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