I spend a bit of time in Sydney, love the place.
Love visiting, love getting home.
I can mix it with the inhabitants and even enjoy talking to them most of the time.
But that is very shallow, and although many of us do spend a good bit of time there (and in other cities both here and abroad), we do not – and cannot – gain a deep understanding of what drives them, what’s important to them and subsequently, what flows through to inform their purchasing decisions.
Yes, we can get an analysis of some of that data from the organisations that do them – but that is not cultural understanding at its core.
To help those people who don’t share our own backgrounds, to understand what’s important to us and why we ‘bang on’ about what we do, we would do well to find some of those core values we do share, and talk about those.
Think of food quality, for you or your children.
I think most of us would value this, no matter where we are from.
So [insert name], why would I do anything to my sheep or wheat that would have a detrimental impact to the quality or health status when I value the same thing as you?
See where I’m going?
A few people and organisations have done this with some success in recent years, but as an industry we have not got our story telling as good as it can be to really assist developing shared understanding.
It starts at all levels, it doesn’t matter where you are, who you talk to or how you talk to them.
Anyone and everyone has the chance to be seen and heard these days, which can also obviously be a massive threat and sometimes unfortunate.
Our ability to do this is becoming more and more important.
Some of our members (Future Farmers Network) are showing real concern in this area constantly, because they don’t want to be working in an industry that is always in fear of being seen negatively in the general public.
They want to do what they can to understand their consumers and vice versa. We often forget when we talk about the new generations of consumers, that our upcoming industry leaders are also part of that generation.
Gen Y are interested in quality and provenance and this trend is forecast to continue – there is nothing to say (that I am aware of) that this will stop, and that people will go back to not caring where their food and clothing come from. We may all be wrong.
A former boss of mine used to remind everyone that a mob of 3,000 is made up of 3,000 individuals, so look after them. Broad industry perceptions and cultural sentiment is made up of a million everyday interactions, conversations and images (and a whole lot more).
To that tune, let’s keep ours honest, realistic and genuine.
