The National Farmers’ Union provide a collective voice for their 55,000 members from the UK’s agricultural industry. As a hardy bunch, most of their members have a healthy level of cynicism. The NFU needed ways to improve its wider member communications and create brand campaigns that would resonate with an audience unwilling to engage with the benefits of their offer.

Insight
We spoke directly to a proportion of NFU members, taking the time to listen to their real needs, which provided an essential insight – the importance of trust.

Most members recognised that they were key to their business, after all there is no farm without them. They would only engage with communications that demonstrated they understood what it takes to be the hub of a family, a business and a farm. They would only trust organisations that demonstrated they understood what it takes to be a farmer.

Ideas
Putting members at the heart of campaigns and communications allowed them to describe the benefits of membership for themselves. Creating messaging that is direct and to the point appealed to this busy, pragmatic audience. Shunning glossy advertising photography to use reportage photographers shadowing real-life members, generated true to life, serious and inspiring imagery.

Every available channel was stretched to demonstrate that farmers could trust the NFU because the NFU understood what it is really like to be a farmer.

Impact
Originally focused on the Private Healthcare offer (which saw a 450% increase in enquiries in the first 6 months of the campaign), we rolled this approach out across wider membership communications and experiences including the annual renewal pack and creating the ‘member zone’ at the annual conference.