The Makers’ County

The Moment of Change: Changing the game

Turns out, there’s way more to Wiltshire food and drink than ham. The county has more breweries and distilleries than you can shake a stick at, along with tons of farms, dairies, jam makers, restaurants that use produce grown in their own garden, chocolatiers… the list goes on. But there had been no major effort to bring all of these makers together and give them the fanfare they deserved.

Wiltshire Council had been looking at developing a provenance scheme for a number of years, and thanks to some specific government funding around local economic development, the time was now. The thing is, they didn’t want it to look like any old boring council scheme. That’s where we came in.

The plan we made

As with any of our brand projects, we held a brand workshop, inviting key players in the Council to give us their thoughts and help us get the lay of the land. What we took from that workshop were two things. Firstly, there’s no way we were sticking a white horse in the logo. Secondly, Wiltshire has a really rich agricultural history and its growers, producers and hospitality venues are all affected by that, whether they know it or not.

Ultimately, Wiltshire is a county full of people that are makers at their core – they go out and do the hard graft, and any brand had to reflect their ingenuity and resilience.

The story we told

So, with white horses and Stonehenge out of the picture, how could we best represent Wiltshire?

In the end, we fell in love with a stylised trowel – the W for Wiltshire formed the fork, and a droplet of water formed the handle, representing the natural landscape that supports such great food. We chose earthy greens but paired them with bright blues and yellows so they’d look absolutely nothing like a council project. And then, we wrapped it all up with the perfect strapline – The Makers’ County.

At the core of the project was an all singing, all dancing website that served as a directory for all the members of the scheme, letting people find makers close to them, or plan a Sunday afternoon out picking up ingredients. Thing is, we had to find the right people to go on there. So as well as getting the site up and running, we ran an intensive search for potential members – picking up the phone, sending e-newsletters, using targeted social media advertising – to make sure we got the right mix.

Once we had our makers, we needed great photography. Stock photos were not going to cut it. We took a few days to go and visit some of Wiltshire’s finest, capturing them in their element. We also wanted to tell those stories, so we got to know how they do it and put it all together in some special spotlights on the website.

A big part of the Wiltshire Marque is getting producers talking to each other. We wanted the scheme to launch with a bang, so we got producers and supporters alike together at the gorgeous Pythouse Kitchen Garden to learn about the scheme, get making connections, and enjoy a bloody good roast.

The Mighty change

The initial reception to the Wiltshire Marque was huge. Even though provenance schemes aren’t a new thing (we should know), Wiltshire’s never had one before, and there are loads of brilliant Wiltshire makers who are excited to be part of it.

This project’s a big one, so we’re supporting Wiltshire Council by managing the Marque website, driving forward the social media strategy, keeping members informed of everything that’s happening, and just about everything else – after all, brand-led communications is what we do.