Arla to quicken ‘commercialisation’ of its ‘dairy co-op’ status
Cravendale owner Arla is to redouble efforts to make its status as the UK’s largest farmer-owned dairy company a bigger part of what its brands represent, spotting an opportunity to commercialise support for the agricultural trade during a volatile period for milk prices.
Anchor, Lurpak and Cravendale are well known national brands but many shoppers don’t know they’re owned by a co-operative of farmers rather than a faceless conglomerate. That’s according to Arla Foods’ UK marketing boss Sarah Baldwin, who wants to distill that notion through the different personalities of each of its brands. No two brand strategies will be the same consequently, with the dairy producer keen to explore new ways of getting its message out there.
To that end, Arla is developing its own recipe for ‘always-on marketing’ that will combine headline-grabbing activity with education that buying Arla brands directly supports its farmers.
It is working with Space to bring this to life, initially through the ‘White Wednesdays’ push. Arla expects to reach over 40 million people over the next month through the campaign, which will introduce the 75 second film entitled ‘Farmer Christmas’ alongside a major event in central London yesterday (2 November).
The remaining three Wednesdays will take a similar approach across the country, where many of Arla’s 3,000 farmers and 3,500 colleagues will help to distribute one million Farmer Christmas cards that trumpet the benefits of being a farmer-owned business.
Baldwin is hoping of extending this campaign into 2016 and making it not just for Christmas. “We’re trying to raise awareness as we head into Christmas when people are possibly planning to do a bit more cooking and more shopping,” she added.
“We clearly can’t get involved when it comes to [milk] pricing but what I can do from a marketing perspective is market my product more, as well as commercialise it further. It’s not off the direct protests but it’s really important that we support the industry.”
And there will be more of this type of activity from the dairy producer over the next 12 months alongside a heightened proposition around healthier eating. Arla’s site is already helping drive the first point through a series of videos featuring some of the members of its co-operative, which are also being amplified on its social media channels.
The strategy is being fuelled by insight from YouGov, which revealed that people are willing to back farmers with their wallets amid a milk pricing tussle with supermarkets. Falling milk prices have heaped pressure on farmers, although almost two-thirds of consumers (60 per cent) say they would pay extra for diary products if it went back to farmers, while almost 70 per cent of those polled caliming they opted to buy their dairy products from a company which is owned by the famers themselves.