JKR

The Archers might be a radio institution, but it is always sure to keep things contemporary. Currently, the fictional farming family has got a rebranding plot line. I can’t claim to be a regular listener, but from what I can glean, the family farm was selling its produce under the ‘Bridge Farm Organics’ name. Then the farm was struck by E. coli, putting the business in jeopardy. So young entrepreneurial Tom Archer has persuaded the family to repackage the product. Now they are Ambridge Organics, named after the village the show is set in.

It’s not often repackaging is the topic of a major soap, so I thought we might consider it here. Tom was cock a hoop with his new design, and more so with its results. A quick web search showed the new name threw up no reference to E. coli “until page six”. The Organics’ branding was bold and looked “like it had nothing to hide”. Orders were back on with made up shop Underwood’s, and he had secured a meeting with the previously uninterested Octagon Foods. Facing the future with confidence, Tom notes “We can’t afford to look back”. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, Tom has made errors of judgement before. As The Archers’ site notes of this self-styled meat product entrepreneur – “He’s made some disastrous decisions over the years, one of the more memorable ones being to get romantically involved with ruthless supermarket buyer Tamsin. She dumped both him and his sausages with indecent haste, causing the loss of his dignity and almost his business.”
And by the sound of their name, Octagon Foods are probably a bunch of bastards. I’d watch your back with them Tom. But let’s consider this seriously, and think how we might advise Tom were he to be a client in the real world. After all, farmers are famously having a tough time in business, and The Archers reflects their real life challenges.

It strikes me that Tom’s situation is really not that dissimilar in principle to BP’s when they were filling the bay of Mexico with oil. You are what you are, and have done what you have done. You cannot simply rebrand yourself out of trouble. That mention on page six of the web is a smoking gun, and it’s going to get you. The truth will out and this will make the rebrand a failure. In fact, it will reignite an issue that would otherwise have blown over. And worse, to the forgivable misfortune of E. coli we can now level a charge of shifty disingenuousness at Ambridge Organics. So all trust will be gone and Tom really will have blown it. Authenticity is a priceless asset, and I would have advised Tom to concentrate on preserving what he had, rather than squandering both it, the goodwill and trust he has built up and his presumably meager funds on a cosmetic exercise.

Design can only achieve so much. It certainly can’t make bad news go away, and a new lick of paint won’t change the building underneath. In the real world, Heston Blumenthal’s norovirus outbreak at the Fat Duck was handled the only way these things can be. With a frank and sincere apology, and a graceful offer of culinary compensation to the victims. And then he crossed his fingers, gritted his teeth and hoped for the best. Renaming the restaurant the Porky Pig was not on the menu. I hope I am wrong, but I fear Ambridge’s local paper will soon be making trouble for Tom, and Octagon Foods will be poised to capitalise on his misfortune.

What would we have done in design terms for him? Well, us city folk like a bit of poncey farmers’ market ‘real food’. I would have suggested a nice design under the old name and charged a healthy premium down at Borough Market. This would have been honest, but the distance from Ambridge to London would have ensured those shopping would be unaware of past troubles with the brand. And using the new design with the old name to herald a fresh start after a tough time would in any case draw a line under the whole E. coli thing. Design can signal a fresh start, but it can’t erase the past. Changing their name has paradoxically kept the past toxic for Tom and Ambridge Organics, I believe.