Will’s World: UK farming should be more Accrington Stanley

There’s nothing like having to sit through tedious adverts on commercial TV stations to make you appreciate the BBC.

Does anyone buy the products they’re peddling? If anything, the majority would make me actively avoid making a purchase from them.

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I reached peak “disgruntled of Wrexham” status over this during the last Six Nations, when ITV were cutting away to mind-numbingly dull adverts whenever there was a scrum reset.

A sacrilegious act, if you ask me, and if Points of View was still a thing, I’d have written them a sternly worded letter about the evils of unrestrained capitalism.

Still, I’ve always been fascinated by branding and marketing and therefore tend to pay attention to it.

I don’t like to brag, but I even got a distinction for my marketing module back in my early Harper Adams days, causing my tutor to encourage me to think seriously about it as a possible career.

Of course, I turned that down and chose a glamorous and glittering future as a tenant farmer instead – who needs a large salary, multiple benefits, and comfortable life anyway?

Watch and learn

For obvious reasons then, it’s farming-based adverts that really pique my interest, but I’ve generally found them to be incredibly twee and boring in recent years.

Whether it’s from levy boards or assurance bodies, most of them just preach to the converted and are instantly forgettable. Remember the last Red Tractor TV advert? No, me neither.

The last ad for any sort of British produce that was impactful enough to enter the national consciousness was probably the Milk Marketing Board’s famous Ian Rush and Accrington Stanley (all together now – “who are they?!”) campaign, and that aired way back in 1989.

Aussie rules

Contrast that to the annual Australia Day lamb adverts created by Meat and Livestock Australia.

They’ve become highly anticipated over the past decade for their bold, satirical humour that celebrates the unique Aussie culture, typically culminating around a family barbecue.

They never fail to stir public debate and go massively viral online as a result. I don’t know what marketing agency they use, but could UK farming plc give them a call please?

Or perhaps we can look closer to home, because have you seen the new ad for Jeremy Clarkson’s Hawkstone lager?

Utterly brilliant in its simplicity, it stylishly emphasises the human side of production, with Kaleb Cooper launching into a slow-motion dive to save a pint of freshly poured Hawkstone that’s falling off a table, while a montage of the gargantuan farming effort that went into creating it flashes before his eyes.

As the strapline goes, “a year’s graft in every pint”. Isn’t that marvellous.

I believe it even aired during the final break before England’s opening World Cup match to a presumably huge audience.

Social acceptance

But that isn’t where I saw it, because it popped up on my Instagram feed, proving conclusively that it’s crossed over into popular culture territory – a rare thing indeed.

I love the authenticity of the approach too. It’s just British beer, made with British barley, sold by a bloke who genuinely seems to care about British farmers.

I don’t know if I was just tired from harvesting, or if I had barley dust in my eye, but watching it even made me feel a bit emotional.

I firmly believe that the vast majority of people in the UK support farmers and want to buy from them, but perhaps we need to realise that just slapping a Union Jack and a cutesy logo on our products isn’t enough anymore.

Anyway, a cold pint of Hawkstone beckons – cheers everyone.