It’s all about differentiation, says the director of branding for the Canadian Wheat Board. What makes you — and the products you produce — different and better than buyers can get from anyone else?
And what, Dave Burrows adds, can you do to make sure that someone else won’t swoop in after you’ve spent a lot of time and money building your brand and take your market?
“Success can attract a lot of imitators,” Burrows explains. “You really can be vulnerable.”
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You can brand your farm, or you can brand your products. And there are other choices too. Your differentiation can be hard, like functional attributes, how you go to market, or the processing equipment you use. Or it can be soft, like a lifestyle appeal.
Or it can be a combination. For example, some farmers have built markets for speciality products like cold-pressed canola and soybean oil that are aimed directly towards the high-end culinary market, which means they’re differentiating on the basis of product and image at the same time.
Whatever your decision, the goal is to stop being a ‘me too’ brand, says Burrows.
For proof of the strength of branding, Burrows points to a survey done recently by Agriculture and AgriFood Canada that found consumers were more likely to buy a product that was clearly labelled ‘Product of Canada’ than one they knew to be grown locally.
“Even if you know this product is grown locally, but you see a product beside it that you are now 100 per cent sure is grown in Canada, consumers will go with that [branded] product,” Burrows says. “It really speaks to the power of persuasion and branding.”
