Market Farming

["jay gee" <jgj23 AT mindspring.com>]

Rick Williams wrote:

>>>>
 I sure don't see how the branding has anything at all to do with good or
 bad. That is quite another issue and is a perception of the public and the
 potential customers. The brand is to give visibility.
<<<<

A brand does not give visibility.

Visibility or "top of mind awareness" is achieved through advertising
or other people writing/talking about a product.

Branding is the image about a product or service that an advertiser
tries to create in the minds of targeted consumers.  The effects of
serious strategic and tactical branding is that it gives an edge over
weakly or poorly branded competitors.  The effect of a well executed
branding strategy by a business that really delivers the goods is that
when people hear or see the brand name, all the brand associations
which have accumulated in that consumer over the years are
summoned at once, creating a positive emotional experience.

On the flip side, a bad experience erodes positive brand associations,
and a collection of bad experiences creates a negative brand
association.  That is why big companies who have been doing
bad things often change their names in an attempt to escape the
negative brand consequences of their actions.

> Although some people may say that, most do not differentiate that much with
> "organic" and "organic local." Isn't it the clientele of market farmers who
> are more interested in that part of organic?

If I read it correctly, recent ACNielsen Research did not seem
to indicate what you are asserting.

>>>>
 How do you view the concept suggested by some here that market farmers have
 a joint regional or perhaps country-wide label vs. having their own label?
<<<<

The more widely recognized the trademark, the more powerful it becomes,
provided there are positive brand associations to it.

>>>>
 Our farm already has a logo that we developed using our farm name using
 conventional fonts but doing some kerning and leading to make it very
 distinctive (especially the M). From our perspective our "brand" is Misty
 Ridge Farm and go by that name.
<<<<

A farm logo may be important to the farmer emotionally,
but the more important marketing aspect of a farm is its name.
When the farm name includes information about the farm
products, it is a stronger name.  Calorganic is an example.

Unless the farmer packages goods and ships them,
an expensive graphical logo is unnecessary.

People buying food associate the food name with
the food qualities.  Until you are established, a logostyle
is really unnecessary.

The average market farmer would be better off with
labels on produce with the name and location of the
farm.

Jay Gee
not a farmer -- but interested in farming