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market-farming - Re: Adverrtising the Farmers' Market

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Subject: Market Farming

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  • From: "Del Williams" <delannw AT dlogue.net>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Adverrtising the Farmers' Market
  • Date: Mon, 28 May 2001 09:31:00 -0500


I appreciate the advertising advice. Last year we hired a professional to
design a graphic for a market logo. What is the obsession with the
cornucopia? That's the first thing people come up with and, frankly, you
can get a number of excellent examples of cornucopia with any basic desktop
publishing program out there. If you're going to pay a professional you
ought to get something creative not canned.

The cornucopia is about the harvest and a symbol strongly associated with
Thanksgiving. For spring season sales, it is a misleading image. We don't
have tomatoes, corn, pumpkins, gourds, etc. for sale in the early season.
You'd be amazed at the number of customers who expect to see sweet corn and
tomatoes in May in Illinois. The cornucopia would only compound these
problems.

The cornucopia is also a biased promotion of market offerings. We sell
vegetables and fruits, plants, fresh herbs, flowers, jelly and jam,
free-range chicken, eggs, baked goods, breads and rolls, Italian specialty
cookies, fresh pork, popped corn, fajitas, hand sewn clothing, perennials,
etc.

Finally, the average small town/city farmers' market has a limited
advertising budget (if any) to hire professional designers. I would bet
that most markets have no advertising budget. We have increased our vendor
fee by 500% in three years in order to have a basic advertising budget.
Many markets don't even have sales fees much less an advertising budget.

In the end, and in reference to the original point, when newspapers offer ad
design services, they ought to do design. Anybody can type up an ad -
designers should design.

Del Williams
Farmer in the Del
Clifton IL






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