£1.8m to be spent on advertising organic food - will it make any difference?

The Organic Trade Board, a body representing over 90 companies, is spending nearly £2m to promote the benefits of organic food. Half of the money was put up by the companies involved and the other half came from the EU.In the OTB's words, they want to "democratise" organics, and to this end adverts will appear in magazines like OK and Heat.

Will it stop the drop in organic sales?

The organic optimist would say yes. All that is needed is a bit of consumer education. Hugh Bowles, chairman of the OTB says “The term organic is widely misunderstood, and through this campaign we want to help consumers to discover exactly what it means and why it is worth it.”

The organic sceptic might respond that it is wrong to blame the sales drop on confused consumers. They might point to the acres of newsprint and hours of television given over to supporting purchase of organic food but which has not helped maintain sales. They could argue that, despite much research, no consistent evidence has been found to prove that organic foods are better for you, and that those worried about animal welfare or environmental standards could buy local foods from a trusted farmer or even from one of the supermarkets with a good reputation for caring about such things. And so, why would consumers pay a hefty premium for organic, especially in a difficult financial climate.

But, there are consumers who like the idea of organic, and, regardless of logic, advertising is as much about appealing to the heart as to the head.

So has the new advertising got the “wow” factor that might persuade people to re-evaluate and think about spending a bit more to buy organic food?

Probably not.

The problem is this... The OTB has not come up with a strong, compelling and easy to understand reason to buy organic. Instead, they are trying to be all things to all people. One advertisement shows a father and son saying they like organic because “we care about animals”, a second shows a painter/decorator saying he loves organic because “it feels right for my family”. The special website developed to back up the adverts show several more reasons – “Better for nature”, “More natural”, and “Great tasting”.

This might not matter if the amount of money being spent was huge, but £1.8million spread over three years, whilst it sounds colossal, is small in terms of the amount of impact it will have on consumers.

As with all these generic campaigns which advertise a broad sector rather than a specific brand, we will never know whether the advertising worked. Should organic sales rise then the adverts will be claimed a success. But the fact is that growth is much more likely to be a result of big retailers promoting organics to bring the price closer to conventional products, or innovation in the way organics are sold, like Waitrose’s expansion of the Duchy Originals range.

Should sales not grow then the claim will probably be that things could have been much worse had the advertising not happened.

What cannot be faulted is the organic movement’s commitment to its cause. It is no mean feat to bring 90 stakeholders together and persuade them to part with hard cash for a speculative venture.