The UK’s first ever generic organic consumer campaign goes live this week with advertisements appearing in Grazia, Heat and OK!

The ‘Why I love Organic’ campaign was unveiled at special briefing to organic companies in London in December.

The campaign launch is the culmination of over two years’ work by OrganicUK, and an industry-wide initiative co-ordinated jointly by Sustain and Organic Trade Board (OTB). Since its inception, the group has raised over £1 million in pledges from 95 companies and organisations. This sum is being match-funded by the EU creating a campaign fund of £2 million to be spent over a three year period.

The creative campaign has been developed by London marketing firm Haygarth and consists of three-year advertising, PR and digital strategy.

Over to you
Speaking at last month’s industry preview, Catherine Fookes of Sustain and OTB told a room packed with leading figures from the organic world: “This really is a momentous day. It’s taken us two years to get here, and it’s incredibly exciting finally to be able to unveil the campaign. This is the day our campaign becomes your campaign. We believe it has the potential to change the perception of organic food and drink in this country.”

She continued: “ For a long time commentators have been saying that the organic industry must speak with a unified voice. This campaign offers us a chance to do that. It’s a big opportunity to put the organic industry firmly back on a growth footing. This is so important because the UK is the only country on Europe that has seen a reduction in organic retail sales in the. Every other country in Europe has seen some level of growth through the recession where every country. The organic market in many of these countries has benefited significantly from multiple EU-back organic consumer campaigns. The EU was actually surprised to have a submission from a commercial group — all the campaigns had   been originated, or had the support, of individual governments or their agencies.”

Moment of optimism
But Fookes added: “The very good news is that our campaign comes as the UK organic sector is turning a corner. Retail sales last month should show the sector moving into positive growth. We’ve had the ‘Yo Valley’ campaign, the media are interested in us again. So I think there is real reason for optimism.”

OTB chair, Huw Bowles, applauded the “tremendous amount of work that has been done” and the “very robust process employed in developing the campaign”. He urged the companies present to begin “amplifying the message of the campaign” by getting involved with it at every level. He added: “The important thing to remember is that we are not selling to ourselves. The current reality is that only 1 % of the population buys one organic item a month. It’s those people we need to be moving up.”

The main aims
Haygarth CEO, Sophie Daranyi, talked through the thinking behind the campaign and how it would implemented. The campaign had three main aims she said:

• Increase sales by 15% year on year for three years

• Increase sales by increasing frequency of purchases

• Democratising organic

15 % was “quite an aggressive target” Daranyi said, and messaging would be aimed at the lightweight user “who offers the biggest opportunity for growth”. She said that ‘democratising organic’ meant putting the focus on the unconverted.

The campaign
The campaign deliberately use everyday language to engage with the target audience. The main campaign slogan “There are lots of reasons to love organic, discover yours” aim to turn one of the perennial challenges for the organic — multiple benefits that are difficult to communicate effectively — into a positive. “The campaign invites consumers to identify with the benefits or values that mean most to them”.

The mains slogan is supported by a series of secondary messages such as “organic is better for nature”, “organic is better for animal welfare”, “organic contains less pesticides and nasties”, and “organic costs a little more, but it’s worth it”. Commenting on the last phrase, Daranyi said: “We felt that it was better to address the price issue in a positive way, to explain it, rather than hide away from the issue. Each of the the messages has been approved by the Advertising Standards Agency.

The advertising campaign, which begins in January, is based on series of fictional organic consumers. First out of the blocks is Eddie the painter and decorator, who announces “I love organic because it feels right for my family”. Other characters choose organic for animal welfare, environmental and health reasons. The ads will appear in prominent positions in magazines such as OK!, Heat and Grazia, along with supermarket magazines such as Waitrose Food Illustrated.

A ‘Why I Love Organic’ website (www.whyiloveorganic.co.uk) will also launch in January and will offer recipe suggestions, news, background information on the campaign and quiz people on their reason for loving organic. Social media — Twitter and Facebook — activity will also launch in the New Year. A PR campaign will be put in place to help raise awareness of the reasons to love organic and deliver reminders to purchase in targeted media. And a panel of organic spokespeople is also being assembled to field media questions and put faces to the campaign.

OTB and Sustain are urging all organic suppliers, retailers and campaigners to get behind the campaign by carrying campaign messages on their own sites, adding links to the Why I Love Organic’ website, and using campaign slogans and graphics on promotional material and POS.

• To find out how to get involved with the Why I Love Organic campaign, or to ask for a campaign toolkit, email OTBPR@haygarth.co.uk

Campaign timetable

Press ads

Launch January 2011 and run for 9 months

PR campaign

Goes live in January 2011 with unveiling campaign. Built around ‘PR Pillars’ the campaign continues through the year with quarterly news drivers

Digital

whyiloveorganic.co.uk website goes live in January 2011. Social media activity (Facebook and Twitter) also begins