Create an accompanying report that draws on relevant theories and concepts within Block 1 to explain and justify the decisions made in producing your team's piece of marketing communication.

Context and background

Skylark Farm is situated five miles south of a major city in the Midlands (UK), just sufficient distance from the sprawling suburbs to feel remote without feeling isolated. The farm has been in Don Evans' family since the 1870s, when it was originally a major hop producer. During the 1960s, it was a productive dairy farm, but the acreage at the farm was not enough to support a herd big enough to produce enough milk to satisfy the demand of the major supermarkets. In addition to grazing land, the farm comprises of the original farm house, an adjacent (oast house)¹ and a collection of large barns. It benefits from the nearby main road that provides excellent transportation links to the motorway network and the city.

In the 1990s, like many farmers in the region, Don Evans decided to diversify from agriculture and to seek income from new ventures. With the help of grants, Don transformed some of the barns at the far end of the farm into 11 commercial industrial units and built an access road to connect the units to the main road. The units are of varying size and well suited for light industry or simply office/studio/warehousing space. Skylark Farm Business Park was formed, and, to symbolise the launch of the venture, a simple outline drawing of a Skylark in flight, drawn by a local schoolchild, was chosen to be the basis of the brand image.

Within 18 months, all the units were rented out. The rental income from Skylark Farm Business Park allowed Don to maintain an interest in farming. Don retained a small rare breed herd of Albion cattle, selling the specialised beef to a local butcher, and offered support for fellow breeders. He occasionally had requests from schools and agricultural colleges who wanted to see the rare breed. It also gave him impetus to further diversify from farming. These developments occurred incrementally, usually accompanied by the sale of small packets of the remaining farmland to fund the work.

Skylark Farm Café and Shop

 In 2014, following the death of his partner, Don invited Jan, his daughter, and Adhrit, her husband, to become fellow directors of the company. Don would retain the dominant share, however Jan and Adhrit would be expected to be heavily involved. With some persuasion, Jan and Adhirt agreed and moved with their children from London to join Don on the farm. He had recently renovated the oast house next to the main farm buildings and had converted it into a retail and catering space. Jan and Adhrit were tasked with building up custom at the newly created Skylark Farm Café and Shop. They gave up their careers in fashion and insurance respectively and were driven by a desire for their children to grow up with clean air and space to roam.

Jan saw an opportunity at Skylark Farm Café and Shop to showcase her passion for the slow food movement, with locally sourced and ethically produced goods prominently featured. A coffee roasting firm, based on the Skylark Farm Business Park, became the main suppliers to the café, whilst a local organic farm co-operative became a principal supplier. Both the shop and the café were modelled on places that Jan and Adhrit had enjoyed frequenting in London. Accordingly, prices in the farm shop were relatively high for the area, the menu in the café was extensive with Turkish, Greek and Sicilian cuisine influences. Staff were recruited from the local area, trained by Jan and Adhrit. They were predominantly young women who enjoyed the highly flexible work options afforded by the café and shop. Jan also worked closely with a local drug rehabilitation charity, providing valuable work experience for individuals who were looking to return to employment in hospitality.

The first two years in business were difficult. The café was tarnished with a series of poor online reviews. It also suffered from weak sales and increasing costs. Although the quality of the coffee and food was good, and the ambience of the shop and café were praised, service at the cafe was viewed as too slow. At the start of 2017, the Skylark Farm Café and Shop recorded operating losses of £6k per month.

To try to resolve these difficulties, Jan and Adhirt hired Seb, initially on a part-time basis, to take over the operations of Skylark Farm Café. This was also a useful means of enabling Adhrit to return to his original career in insurance on a part-time basis, something he was keen to do to bolster the family's income. Seb was an experienced and highly ambitious manager, and he was also very familiar with the area and had a keen sense of what locals want from rural shops and cafes. He had previously helped to transform a sprawling farm into a family adventure park and shopping village. Jan and Adhrit felt confident that he knew what would work at Skylark Farm. Seb was given considerable scope to improve the café and shop and so in his first few weeks he reduced the size of the café's menu, offering a more limited range of healthy but hearty options. He extended the range of options for vegetarians and vegans, whilst also increasing the number of covers, and introduced an online booking system to cope with the busy lunch period. Seb was also an enthusiastic social media user, building a Facebook presence for Skylark Farm Café to update followers on the weekly menu and daily specials. The surge in takings in the café surprised both Jan and Adhrit.

The increased number of covers also had a positive impact on footfall in the shop, however commensurate sales growth wasn't forthcoming. Seb proposed to Don, Jan and Adhrit that the financial risks associated with the running of the shop could be minimised by renting out the space to an ensemble of small retailers. They would bring their specialist expertise to the shop, creating an exciting, diverse and vibrant retail experience. Although this proposal would impact existing supplier relationships, it was accepted, and eventually a cheesemaker, baker, butcher and greengrocer became tenants. Although several of these tenants had an established, usually larger retail operation, often based in the city's market, the cheesemaker and baker were artisan start-ups looking for a way to reach the market beyond the touring farmer market scene.

Each retailer had a discrete space within the shop, with their individual brands prominently featured. All sales in the shop were managed through a single sales counter operated by one of Skylark Farm's small team. No square metre of the shop was allowed to be non-rental income generating. Seb rented out small counter space by the till to a local fudge maker and artisan chocolatier, whilst the coffee roasters also started offering their packaged coffee for retail sale on a small table display near the entrance. This arrangement provided small firms with a convenient and relatively low-cost option for generating sales. The ensemble retail outlet proved popular with shoppers who appreciated the variety of goods available.

Seb also extended his 'shops within a shop' idea to the café, with several of the walls and shelves in the café offered to local artists, who paid a commission on each sale of a painting or sculpture. On a weekday, the 18 table/65 seat café was operating at 40-60 percent capacity, with the lunch hours (11.30am-2pm) usually fully booked. An outdoor seating area was introduced in the summer of 2018 to increase capacity, which proved very popular amongst those who liked their latte alfresco or those who wanted to lunch with their dogs.

Now working on a full-time basis, Seb noticed a regular rhythm to the week. Monday to Friday mornings customers tended to be either parents with pre-school children, groups of retired friends or working adults who were using the café to meet colleagues or clients. The lunch time rush saw office workers from the city or business park, who were taking the opportunity to get out of the office to socialise. Afternoons were generally slow until 3.30pm, when parents with children popped in after the school run for a quick coffee and a cake treat. Weekends saw visitors travel from further afield, who were visiting Skylark Farm as part of a day out. These were a mix of families, rambler groups and cyclists. The café generally closed at 4.30pm each day. However Seb encouraged Jan and Adhrit to consider using the café space for private functions in the evenings.

The increasing popularity of Skylark Farm Café and Shop had reassured Jan and Adhrit that it was safe in Seb's hands. Not all of the innovations introduced by Seb were welcomed by the Directors though. One of the major changes Seb had instigated was the shift in the policy on suppliers. Although the local coffee roasters had been retained, the organic food co-operative had been largely replaced by a small number of firms who were able to provide a wider variety and cheaper produce. The lunch time meals were now largely ready-made and just needed to be heated through in the kitchen. This enabled Seb and his team to decrease the service time, critical for those customers with limited lunch breaks. It also enabled the menu to be revised each week. These meals were still, however, of a premium quality, and the constantly changing menu helped encourage people to return more frequently.

Jan was uneasy about the change in suppliers, but not wishing to create conflict with Seb, she decided not to pursue the matter. Skylark Farm Café and Shop had originally established itself through its ethical and environmental credentials. These values were important to Jan and something that she didn't wish to compromise upon.

Skylark Farm and Home Delivery

 Don was pleased with the footfall that Skylark Café and Shop generated. He was considering whether an outbuilding that was adjacent to the old oast house could be renovated for retail and entertainment purposes to provide a greater incentive for visitors to come and perhaps stay longer. He had already secured planning permission but had not progressed these plans due to earlier concerns about the viability of the Shop and Café. In January 2020, Don contracted the builders and they started to work on the outbuilding.

In March 2020, the restrictions on movement and assembly associated with the Covid-19 pandemic impacted on Skylark Farm. The café and shop had initially closed but within a week re-opened for take-out drinks and snacks only. Trade was very slow, consisting of local residents who would stop off at the café as part of their daily walk. This then expanded to home delivery of produce from the shop and meals facilitated through a major online app. The changing occupancy in the business park and the pivot to online trading in the shop and café did mean that there was a lot of comings and goings at the farm, but these were largely delivery drivers, with few on-site paying customers. Jan did at least console herself with the fact that those that did visit for a drink were served their beverage in recyclable cups.

Jan had instigated opening the café kitchens for home delivery. She was however disappointed at the amount of plastic being used for packaging the home delivered meals. She explored the option of reusable and returnable containers, with home diners washing and returning the containers to the café later in the week or having them collected when they next placed an order. This would have the benefit of significantly reducing waste generation and environmental emissions, but it would require a major change in the behaviour of consumers, create logistical complications and entail a sizeable upfront financial investment. Don could see the potential benefits, but he was not convinced that the timing was right for trialling this initiative.

Jan therefore turned to external suppliers of compostable food packaging. The packaging was more expensive than its plastic counterparts, and it couldn't be used if the meal was particularly hot and predominantly liquid based. This obviously limited its utility. Where it could be used, however, Jan adopted it. This increased costs, which were reflected in higher prices. However customers seemed to be prepared to accept the higher prices under the 'new normal' circumstances which Covid regulations provided.

During the lockdown period, Jan and Seb focused all of their attention on operational matters in the café. A review of suppliers saw a few changes, with a preference for local producers and firms who demonstrated a commitment to the local community and environment. The absence of customers on site and the reliance on third party apps to deliver their service also started to change how they approached their branding and their positioning. Prior to the pandemic, Skylark Farm Café and Shop was a tangible entity, with buildings, land and livestock. It was a destination people could visit in person. With the restrictions imposed, the brand was flattened on to a screen and so became constrained by the text and image arrangement preformatted by the app owner. A name change was quickly introduced, with 'Skylark Farm Café and Shop' replaced by 'The Skylark.' Jan felt that the sense of movement and sound captured her environmental efforts. Seb also felt that the name change would make it more suited to mobile phone screens.

Lockdown Easing

In Autumn 2020, The Skylark re-opened with restricted indoor seating capacity but with extended space for outside tables. During lock down, Don built a children's play area on the farm and encouraged local children and their parents to make use of it. Don's playground had proved helpful in bringing more families to the farm, many for the first time. A pottery school also opened on the farm and was looking to develop a reputation as a good venue for children's parties, with The Skylark providing catering on request. Although the number of children (and their parents) able to meet indoors was restricted, the pottery school anticipated an easing of these rules.

The kitchens would now need to cater for both in-person customers and home delivery, something Seb felt was manageable in the short term but may prove challenging when lockdown eased further. The home delivery was proving very popular, especially for lunch and early evening orders. Seb had managed to retain the idea of a rotating menu, retaining the most popular dishes but introducing specials each week. This had bolstered repeat custom. Reviews of The Skylark on the app and on social media were very positive; this and positive word of mouth had seen a significant increase in custom. Seb was adamant that this was the start of a major long-term social shift in how people would approach dining in and eating out. This wouldn't mean that there was no market for the café experience, but all the indications were that home delivery was going to continue to increase, even with restrictions easing. Seb also perceived that the return to the office would see an increase in sales amongst people who would quickly tire of taking packed lunches to work.

An analysis of the customer data for home delivery pointed to a very different customer profile to those customers they had served previously. Many of those who ordered online had probably never visited the farm; they were typically resident in the wealthier outskirts of the city, usually within two miles of the farm. Those who ordered tended to be female, aged 25-50, with the average value of each order exceeding £40. This order tended to consist solely of food and not drinks, with peak orders received Thursday and Friday between 4.30pm and 6pm. There was also a group of customers, again predominantly female, aged 21-35, who simply ordered speciality coffee and cake.

The Skylark traded normally, although the on-site sales were down 23 percent on the same time in 2019. This however was more than compensated for by the revenue from the home delivery element.

Skylark Farm Proposal

 

Following the challenges of lockdown, and the impact it had had on not only the business but also the local community, Don decided he wanted Skylark Farm to be a living, thriving community hub. His vision was for Skylark Farm to be a place where local residents could meet, undertake their daily chores and be entertained. With the demise of services like the post office, pharmacy and newspaper shop in the local village, this seemed like an opportunity to rebuild the sense of community.

In sharing his vision with Jan and Adhrit, Don was encouraged to raise the idea at the forthcoming Skylark Farm community meeting, which would be attended by all tenants of the farm. Don also extended the invitation to a few of the suppliers and members of the local parish council.

At the community meeting, there was agreement that the Skylark Farm had become a disparate entity comprising of:

• Skylark Farm business park
• The Skylark. A café and shop (on-site and home delivery)
• Skylark Farm play area
• A pottery school
• Skylark Farm rare breed centre

Attendees suggested that the Skylark Farm simply needed to provide a space in which the communities could grow. These communities need not be wedded to the village per se, but Skylark Farm could be a means through which diverse communities could emerge. The emphasis should be on showing audiences the potential of Skylark Farm and how the various elements on the site gel together around the idea of coming together and working together, with the benefits this offers to participants and the wider environment. The emphasis was on the various values embraced by Skylark Farm residents and visitors rather than on the farm as a destination in and of itself.

Following the meeting Don asked Adhrit to help him produce a website for Skylark Farm (to incorporate all of the elements and activities of the farm). Adhrit commissioned a local web developer to undertake this work and funding for this was provided by Skylark Farm and the tenants. The final website features a very simple structure, using powerful images to generate a sense of a busy and diverse community in a rural landscape. The top level structure comprises:

• About us
• Eat: Information on the café, bookings and online home delivery
• Shop: Information on the shop and online ordering
• Play: Information on the play area, rare breeds and pottery school
• Work: Each of the tenants has a sub-site
• News and Events
• Contact us

The site incorporates existing social media accounts.

With the website developed, Don and Adhrit devised a client brief that could be sent to several local marketing communication agencies.

Marketing communications brief

 The campaign is primarily designed to promote the launch of the new Skylark Farm, increase revenues at The Skylark and drive traffic to the new website. The website will provide visitors with a detailed sense of the varied activities undertaken on and by the farm, helping to build in the visitors' minds that Skylark Farm is thriving community that embraces innovation, industry and creativity.

Skylark Farm Identity

Skylark Farm is a diverse community of creators and makers who share a passion for embracing innovation that helps to build sustainable communities.

Skylark Farm brand is presented to be:

Physique: A dynamic rural retreat that is just a heartbeat from the city.

Personality: Modern, inclusive, experimental and open in outlook. It acknowledges its debt to the past and seeks to pool the collective knowledge and skills of the community to better the lives of future generations. Confident in its vision, with confidence to speak out.

Culture: Relaxed and welcoming with an expectation that membership of the community brings with it responsibility to the land and all who depend on it as well as a lot of fun.

Self-image: Occasionally a little quirky but also hungry to learn, inspire and share. Prepared to participate.

Reflection: Open to being challenged, willing to give new ideas a chance, prepared to be involved. Striving to live sustainably for the good of future generations.

Relationship: Seeking synergies by working in partnership.

Campaign objectives

 

• To create awareness of Skylark Farm and its on-site and online proposition through generating 2,000 website visits within one month of the campaign's launch.
• To encourage people to visit Skylark Farm (on-site) to participate in its communities.
  • To increase visitor numbers to The Skylark (café) by 7 percent within one month of the campaign's launch.
  • To increase sales in The Skylark (shop) by 5 percent within one month of the campaign's launch.

Target audience

 

There are numerous potential audiences for the communication. A summary of these audiences is outlined below:

Communities within five miles to increase regular footfall to the farm

Communities within 25 miles to increase the number of visitors to the farm at the weekend and during other peak periods (such as the school holidays and Christmas)

Families and groups who are visiting or holidaying in the area

It is unlikely that all of these audiences can be addressed in a single message, therefore it is recommended that you select only one target audience for your communication.

Further information

 The Skylark maintains a database of customer details (on-site and online) that can be used for targeting purposes.

The campaign has not yet decided on a creative theme, however the original brand image of a Skylark is expected to be incorporated.

A budget for the campaign has yet to be determined. However, given that Skylark Farm is a medium-sized business, the campaign is likely to be limited and the budget modest.