This morning brings the news that an advertising agency has been selected by the OrganicUK steering group.
OrganicUK is a project backed by businesses from across the organic sector with the aim of attracting pound-for-pound match funding from the EU to run a campaign that promotes organic food and farming to the public at large.
It’s an ambitious but necessary move for a sector of the food industry that is suffering from having too many messages communicated in too many ways; almost an embarrassment of riches when it comes to positive messages. These need to be refined and presented by experts in order to achieve maximum understanding among our audience.
Today it has been announced that Haygarth, an integrated advertising agency, has been appointed to carry out the campaign, which will initially use digital, press and PR activity, moving into full advertising if and when the bid is successful.
More than £201,000 has been pledged so far for the campaign, which will run over three years. There is a target of £250,000 still to be reached. That we have got this close is a credit to the sector, but as every organic farmer and food producer will benefit from the work, it would be fantastic to reach the target and give the bid the best chance of success. We’ve pledged. Will you?
OrganicUK is an extremely important initiative to bring this country’s organic sector businesses together to properly communicate what organic stands for.
We've pledged - will you?
OF&G has been firmly behind the project from very early days, to the point where we were the first certifier to commit financially to the project.
Now we’re encouraging every organic-related business to get onboard and put their weight behind this crucial move to inform shoppers why they should buy organic.
We’ve very proud to be a backer, so today we’ve added the badge prominently on our website as a reminder to all to take a look and think carefully about what they can afford to put in.
If you haven’t already, please do take a look at the OrganicUK website. If we can pull off a great campaign, everyone will benefit.
organic food, Promotion
Just spotted this piece from Farmers Guardian flagging up a new round of funding from the Welsh Assembly Government for organic conversion.
That’s good to see, though there are a couple of caveats:
- There is a small application window – 15 September to the end of the month
- The available funding is limited to £700,000
That said, we’re pleased to see that arable conversion will be at the top of the priority list. More homegrown organic cereals are badly needed, hence our focus on an annual organic arable event.
Much more detail is available in the very comprehensive FG piece…
