Arla’s marketing VP on why it’s splashing £15m on its first corporate brand campaign

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97XhOgD8aYQ

The “Let in the goodness” campaign by 23red will launch on Monday (8 June) with a TV ad, a first for the brand, showing an Arla farmer during his morning routine in order to promote the brand’s farmer-owned status.

Sarah Baldwin, vice president of marketing at Arla Foods UK, told Marketing Week: “We only became a fully-fledged co-operative in the UK in 2014, which structurally have given us the opportunity to talk about Arla as a business.”

She added that being farmer-owned gives the brand a unique selling point, particularly in the UK.

“It differentiates us from our competitors,” she said, adding that the campaign is about showing consumers where their milk comes from.

“More and more consumers want transparency on companies. Awareness of Arla is not very high at all, and we’ve got a great opportunity in terms of being able to drive that further.”

Arla, which owns the likes of Anchor cheese, Lurpak butter and Cocio chocolate milk, recently launched a range of Arla branded low-fat, reduced sugar yogurts and flavoured milk drinks such as Arla Skyr, Protein and Big Milk.

The launches have been supported by separate TV, digital, outdoor and in-store activity as part of a £15m investment in the brand this year.

“With these two elements linked together we felt it was the right time for us to launch this now,” Baldwin added. “This is our largest ever campaign for the Arla brand portfolio and is a major investment as a business.”

Moving forward, she said the brand will continue to “bring healthier goodness products to consumers through dairy”.

“You’ll start to see us dial that up,” she said. “As food manufacturers in the UK we have a responsibility to be clear about what’s in our products and how they can work as part of your total diet.

“We have a responsibility to ensure we are a healthy nation.”