Everywhere we look, there are brands competing for our attention. As consumers, we shop smartly and carefully – on the whole. We look at different brands, we weigh up the options, and we tend to stick with those we trust.

We appreciate branding and advertising as a way for us to be better informed about the products we are buying.

From medicines to meat, electronics to eggs, there is a huge range of brands in almost every single product category.

Except maybe one. Milk.

Walk down any aisle in the supermarket, and you’ll see several – if not dozens – of different brands trying to attract the attention and purchasing power of a customer. But get to the milk section, and you’ll most likely just see non-branded, supermarket milk, with just one or two exceptions tucked away on a top shelf.

There is a distinct lack of branding in the milk sector. Look at cheese and yoghurts and you’ll see lots of choice. Look at milk, and beyond skimmed, semi-skimmed and whole options, there’s little else to buy.

The milk industry is lagging behind in driving branding forward. Dairy farmers are missing out on leading the way with exciting and innovative brands for the milk they are producing.

But the good thing about lagging behind, is that there are so many positive opportunities out there.

What’s in a brand?

Branding is a massive discipline, one that you could spend years analysing and understanding. Certainly, the nitty gritty of branding is well beyond my expertise.

But there are definitely areas of branding, as dairy farmers, that we can all get to grips with. We see brands every day, we know – instinctively – what works and what doesn’t. We can see for ourselves
which brands are hugely successful.

Take Coca-Cola for example. They’ve built a brand around the product they essentially created and have retained ownership of that product despite constant challenges from competitors. They have successfully diversified and innovated into sub-brands too.

Everyone knows the Coca-Cola brand, everyone recognises the logo. And the majority of us will choose it – despite the higher price – over other options.

Closer to home, we might look to Heck Food. They have successfully built a unique brand around traditional products that we’ve been buying for centuries. They have a unique identity, a unique tone of voice, and some simple, innovative twists on standard products.

But they’ve changed consumers’ perception of sausages and burgers. They’ve built a brand that customers want to buy from, because they recognise something different in them. Better quality, better flavours, a better experience.

What makes branding successful?

That’s what dairy farmers and the milk industry as a whole need to do. Change perceptions about milk and build unique identities for their brand.

Compare two essential commodities – milk and water – for example. There’s no reason why bottled water should be priced at 62p per litre more than milk. That’s a 41% increase.

Beyond that, consumers then have an incredible range of choice when it comes to deciding the type of bottled water they’d like. They can choose supermarket brands, established brands like Buxton or Evian, or premium brands like SmartWater, Fiji and Cano – with a 50% difference in price for what is essentially the same basic product.

The only reason why this is the case is branding. Customers perceive bottled water to be worth the price, and they recognise there are different options to choose from.

By focusing on a unique identity, a unique proposition, dairy farmers can really open up the milk market. And by sticking to that identity, producers can achieve brand loyalty as they build a strong, positive relationship with their customers, helping them to understand and appreciate the milk market.

The current state of milk marketing

As it stands today, milk really isn’t marketed. It’s sold as a loss leader in supermarkets and smaller stores to get people through the door.

For decades, milk has just been seen as a standard essential, and it’s something I’ve been passionate about changing. I even wrote my dissertation on branded milk over 10 years ago.

Beyond the efforts of the Milk Marketing Board, there has never really been any push to market or brand milk. Even in its heyday, the Board was really just promoting the generic nature of milk. Perceptions of milk have therefore remained largely unchanged:

Price is the key purchasing decision for the vast majority of consumers. Compare this with ice-cream, for example, where customers will happily shell out £5 for branded products like Ben & Jerry’s.

Semi-skilled milk is the most popular, with fat content being a concern of most shoppers, perhaps driven by poor branding. For example, whole milk is known as ‘full fat milk’ when it actually only contains 4% fat. Whereas customers buy ‘lean’ mince that still has over 5% fat.

Most customers buy from supermarkets, though location does play a factor. Particularly in rural areas where there is a drive to buy local, and following scandals like horsemeat gate, there is increased awareness of wanting to know where milk is coming from.

Consumers do want to know about the health benefits of milk – but there is very little being done to promote this.

What’s changing in 2019?

From my research in 2009 and my understanding of the marketplace now, it’s clear that if dairy businesses can establish a branded product with a unique selling point that resonates with consumers, then there is a very good chance the product will be successful.

There are lots of positive signs and lots of opportunities for success.

In 2009, Cravendale was the only non-supermarket brand for sale in large shops. Today, we’re starting to see the emergence of more brands, and those established big brands are moving into niche branding too. Muller have been pushing their Frijj brand, and names like St Helens Goat Milk, Yeo Valley and Yazoo are commonplace.

Brands are innovating. Arla has seen great success recently with the launch of their ‘best of both’ worlds, combining the taste of semi-skimmed milk with the fat content of skimmed, and the AHDB is investing more in R&D and marketing.

But we still have a long way to go. We still remain way behind other sectors and we’re facing even more competition moving forward, with the dramatic increase of alternative, nondairy milk.

Whether it’s oat, soy or almond, all the different options are branded effectively.

Drawing passion and purpose from the Vegan Movement

The proliferation of non-dairy alternatives and the explosion of the Vegan Movement can actually be an inspiration to dairy farmers and the milk industry.

Veganuary has seemingly sprung up overnight, with advertising campaigns taking over buses and social media, supermarkets launching their own vegan product ranges and Gregg’s releasing a vegan version of their most popular item – the sausage roll.

According to the Vegan Society, vegans make up 1.16% of the UK population, and yet they seem to dominate the conversation and media coverage. When else have you seen 1% of the population drive the creation of extensive new product ranges, get large supermarkets to run advertising campaigns encouraging you to try their way of life, and drive the share price of high street bakery stores up by 100p?

How? Because they’re passionate about their cause and they’re driven to achieve change.

Vegans are the minority, the outsiders. They are working from outside the establishment, so they can represent a change, a different way of doing and a different way of acting. They are the challenger brand, so they can be bold and confrontational.

They stir up emotions and force consumers to think and reflect, as they’ve done with advertising campaigns – so much so that one councillor in Telford and Shropshire called for their ads to be banned given the region’s deep connections with agriculture.

Most importantly, vegans have a clear purpose and clarity in their message. They have a strong belief and a single-minded cause.

And as dairy farmers, we can definitely learn from that.

Changing the way we brand and promote ourselves

Collectively, we need to be clear and positive on our message. Currently, it’s a bit like Brexit amongst dairy farmers. There’s lots of ideas flying around but no real clarity on what we want to achieve.

We don’t need to waste our time and energy challenging vegan groups and trying to convince them to see the arguments from our perspective.

Instead we should be focusing on education and changing the conversation. We should be positive about ourselves, our brands and our products.

We need to promote what we do and how we do it. We need to showcase our passion for farming and agriculture. We should be proud of our high animal welfare standards and the relationships we have with our herds.

In short, as a collective industry, we should be changing perceptions of milk and dairy. We should be promoting the quality of our products, the safety of British food, the health benefits and the value in buying local.

Building a brand from a local level

The industry as a whole can do more – but so can local farmers too. We can’t rely on big brands who have their own agenda and nor can we lean too heavily on the AHDB to promote our sector. We’ve got to roll our sleeves up and do our bit too.

It doesn’t need to be difficult to get started building your own brand and taking advantage of the opportunities out there.

The key is in planning and being aware of the marketing basics:

• Identifying your goals and objectives

• Understanding your own identity and USPs

• Pinpointing your target market

• Finding the best way to communicate with them

• Measuring your efforts

More and more local farmers are doing just this. We work with a local farm called Bidlea Dairy who have just diversified into pasteurising their own milk, having identified a demand in their region for local, high quality products.

They’ve recognised that a key segment of their audience is on social media and are using this to drive brand awareness and sales.

Similarly, social media and the online space is providing lots of innovative opportunities for the cattle market, with many farms promoting their stock via Facebook pages and Twitter posts before sending them to auction or using sites like Sell My Livestock. They’re building interest in their brand and their products.

Thinking innovatively about the positive branding opportunities

There are many ways we can promote ourselves as farmers, and lots of great opportunities for us. We might just need to think outside of the box. Look at the way related products have been branded in recent years.

Cheese – you can now buy an incredible range of cheeses and cheese brands, from basic to boutique. There are lots of artisan type varieties and dozens of flavour
combinations.

Eggs – from caged and free-range options, to organic, corn-fed, blue, and brown – and that’s just one supermarket’s own range. You can also buy ‘big and fresh’ and ‘happy’ eggs, and those from specific farms.

You could also look to other products to see how they’ve successfully built up a brand around them. Coffee beans have distinguished themselves by branding around the region or specific area where they’re grown.

Many customers are now only looking to buy produce from British farms – as evidenced by the CO-OPs shift to only stock produce from the UK and the #BritishFoodIsGreat campaign by Love British Food.

Tonic water brands like Fever Tree have built a brand around their premium quality by enlisting other brands – namely gins – to promote their offering over competitors to produce a better end product. Who says milk companies can’t do the same by partnering with British Tea companies?

Then there are branding opportunities directly with the public. Farmers could go into local schools and promote the work they do, or – as Bidlea Dairy do – they could take calves to local fêtes and encourage children to interact and learn more about the dairy process. It could even be as simple as sharing on social media what you’ve been doing on the farm today and why.

This type of local education has been incredibly successful with Open Farm Sunday. Since OFS started 13 years ago, almost 2,000 farmers have hosted events and welcomed more than 2.2 million visitors onto their farms. In 2018 alone, 293,650 visited.

After visiting:

• 92% said they appreciated more the work farmers do

• 86% said they felt more connected to farmers who produce their food

• 78% said they were now proactively looking to buy British food.

Why does this have to be just once a year? Whilst there are some risks in opening up your farm to visitors, it can clearly be a positive, worthwhile investment – and one that would be easier if it were done more frequently.

It’s another great way to improve perceptions and change the conversation.

Ultimately, we need to focus on awareness and education.

When compared with other sectors, other markets and other products, there are clearly lots of great branding opportunities for individual farmers.

But there’s also incredible potential for a combined effort across the industry.

As well as branding individual products, we should be working to reshape our entire sector. We can change the way it is viewed by the media and perceived by the public.

We can transform the identity and branding of the milk market, but it’s not going to happen overnight. It will take all of us working together to accomplish this massive shift.

But it’s definitely possible.

By building awareness, driving grassroots initiatives and focusing on education, we can support huge change for all farmers in our industry.

There’s lots to be positive about. There’s lots of innovation to look forward to. And together, we can raise the profile of Great British Farmers and promote the quality of Great British Food as safe, healthy, delicious and nutritious.