PR & Marketing: Woolworths ‘Backing Our Farmers’ Campaign
Woolworths has been running annual ‘Backing our Farmers’ days since 2007, with all profits from the day’s sales supporting farmers and rural community organisations coping with drought. The campaign has been extremely successful with metropolitan customers from the outset, but regional and rural Australia was slower to respond. In 2009, Woolworths asked Sefton & Associates to help it engage effectively with this critical audience – its partner in food production.
The Sefton & Associates approach
An initial diagnosis revealed that many rural customers, particularly farmers and stakeholders in agricultural industry sectors, were sceptical about Woolworths’ objectives, with a perception that some viewed the day as a ‘self-serving’ exercise.
Sefton & Associates worked with Woolworths to develop and execute a communication strategy that would demonstrate Woolworths’ genuine commitment to rural Australia, increase the amount of funds raised and attract more grant applications from eligible farming families and communities.
Over a six week period, our targeted media relations, stakeholder engagement and marketing activities made this campaign relevant to rural individuals and organisations by:
In the lead-up
- Distributing localised media releases featuring rural suppliers discussing their relationship with Woolworths, as well as localised releases promoting grant applications
- Developing material for rural organisations to use in their member publications and websites, such as announcements regarding the event, grants available and a reminder to ‘save your shopping’ for the day
- Facilitating a stronger relationship between Woolworths and the Country Women’s Association, the CWA of Australia, and drafting ‘Letters to the Editor’ for CWA state presidents to send to local media
- Connecting national media with rural people who could speak genuinely about the reality of living in drought, with results including three 5-minute segments on Channel 9’s ‘Today’ show and four make-over features for CWA members on the ‘Kerri-Anne’ television show
- Developing ‘save your shopping’ media releases localised to communities with a Woolworths supermarket, and distributing them one week prior to fundraising day
- Sending a ‘save your shopping’ SMS message to relevant rural organisations as well as Sefton & Associates' extensive stakeholder database.
On the day-and afterwards
- Generating local media interest by providing interview opportunities and imagery at store locations
- Demonstrating community support by distributing a localised media release announcing results
- Developing material for rural organisations to use to announce results to their membership and remind them to apply for funding grants.
The 2009 Backing Our Farmers Day was a huge success, exceeding the previous year’s fundraising result by $1.5 million and generating a record number of grant applications.
Sefton & Associates gained support from a wide cross-section of the agricultural community, securing media coverage worth more than $850,000 and matching its metropolitan counterparts in the delivery of a successful national communication program.
If you would like a copy of our complete campaign booklet please don't hesitate to contact us.
