For those of you who don’t know the brand Riverford is a pioneering organic veg box delivery business founded in 1987 by Guy Watson on his family farm in Devon, England. Initially, it started as a small-scale operation growing organic vegetables and delivering them locally, eventually expanding into one of the leading organic veg box schemes in the UK.
Having thrived for years, Rachel Watson approached us to help Riverford get to the next level. She wanted help to prepare it for succession and the next generation, but had to convince the founder, Guy, that we were the right people for the job.
Guy famously loathed consultants like us. He described us as “marketing tossers” who use marketing bollocks and pointless PowerPoint slide decks to charge people an arm and a leg for what they already knew! Harsh but possibly fair in some cases!!
He certainly wasn’t excited by the idea of spending time with us in our London offices so we had to think on our feet.
However, Rachel knew Riverford needed to ensure the brand could compete as it scaled. They needed guidance on how to present the brand to the next generation. And, despite his misgivings, Guy accepted that they could probably do with some guidance. So he agreed to exploring it further.
The first step was to meet Guy…
So, instead of dragging him to our Chelsea office, Perry drove to Devon and took him surfing followed by a picnic on the rocks. He called it a ‘board’ meeting.
It was clear from the moment they met that Guy was a genius, with strong opinions and a challenger mindset. He was troubled by the fact that not enough people seemed to understand the evils of conventional farming or the Riverford proposition and their work to help increase the chances of survival of all life on Earth.
Guy and his sister Rachel also needed their team to accept a big shakeup. They needed a succession plan that would involve handing the business over to the employees as the new owners. They also needed a replacement for Guy, the brand’s hero for 25 years.
Riverford needed to be better understood across the board with a rallying cry that everyone could get behind and that consumers would love too.
Their business was and still is all about farming food the right way with a network of organic growers, franchisees and committed people with good values. Delicious organic veg, delivered to people’s doors fresh from the farm (sometimes covered in mud!).
Nestled in amongst the order you’d find clever tips from Guy and his team on how to turn its contents into delicious dishes.
We advised them that they needed a brand framework to provide guardrails for their team to scale it without losing the magic. We turned to the brilliant work of Adam Morgan who famously defined what makes a challenger brand with his ‘8 Challenger Credos’.
We decided to use his challenger framework to help the Riverford teams better understand their secret to success and roll it out at scale.
But knowing how much Guy hated “marketing bollocks,” we realised he wasn’t going to enjoy the challenger jargon, so we created a presentation for his team at the outset of our process to take them through what it meant to be a challenger.
Here’s how it went…
Just like farming, challenger branding has been around for over 2,000 years. Before viral marketing, mass media, and the printing press, one person started a movement. It would influence billions and endure for millennia. His name? Jesus!!
If we take each of Adam Morgan’s challenger behaviours and apply them to Jesus we see how he played it like a good’n.
- Break with the past!
- Build a lighthouse identity
- Sacrifice
- Overcommit
- Assume thought leadership
- Create symbols of re-evaluation
- Enter popular culture
- Become ideas centred
1. Break with the past!
Jesus didn’t care about convention. Throwing out the money lenders in the temple is a great example of breaking with the past. It rejected corruption, materialism, and the exploitation of faith. It laid down the gauntlet. He defied entrenched norms, forcing people to take notice.
We pointed out that Riverford was doing the same in conventional farming. They rejected retailers like Tesco and Sainsbury’s and went up against industrial farming. And yes, Guy’s outspoken and brilliant ability to call “bullshit” was uncannily like JC!
2. Build a lighthouse identity
Next, we showed a painting of Jesus performing a miracle. We explained how he’d positioned himself as the only path to God. He had a clear mission. His goals were unambiguous. He had a powerful way of getting people to follow his ‘light’ and example.
Again, we pointed out that for Riverford this was all about “living life on the veg”. A philosophy that embraced many behaviours. People could adopt them by simply ‘subscribing’ to Riverford and becoming part of the tribe.
3. Assume thought leadership
Jesus stood on a hill and began speaking. Crowds gathered as he redefined the spiritual and moral framework of his time. Taking a leadership position that challenged the status quo. He became a teacher and an inspirational figure. He gave people advice on living a more rewarding, fulfilling life.
“Sound familiar?” We reminded them that Guy’s in-depth newsletters were a favourite part of the weekly veg box. They were full of observations, provocations, and recommendations which people loved and shared.
4. Create symbols of re-evaluation
Next up was a picture of Jesus baptising John in the river. Jesus knew the power of branding. So, he created rituals, ceremonies and symbolic gestures to reinforce his mission. Think of it as the ultimate welcome letter and registration process! Genius!
When brands like Riverford sign up customers, they have an onboarding “baptism” process. They also got people to buy online or through a catalogue which was way ahead of its time when they started. These acts aren’t just operational necessities. They are key ways to make people rethink a category and act differently.
5. Sacrifice
This one’s obvious, his ultimate sacrifice at Easter. He literally sacrificed himself for the sake of all humanity. Now, we didn’t suggest to Guy that he and the Riverford team go to those extremes. But, a challenger brand must sacrifice and let go of the past to break into a market or gain share.
In Riverford’s case this meant lots of things from sacrificing the opportunity to reach consumers in supermarkets, to getting rid of all sorts of things they held dear but in and of themselves weren’t helping grow the business.
One great example was their stance on plastic, which they rightly said they’d justify using to offset waste until such a time that they could find an alternative. This was an act of sacrificing their promise ironically.
6. Overcommit
When Jesus did something, he’d overcommit. Like going into the desert for 40 days and 40 nights. Or his unwavering commitment to teaching, healing, and challenging norms, despite knowing it would lead to his persecution.
Our advice to Riverford was to mimic this relentless pursuit of better on behalf of the planet and their consumers because it was what set them apart and people loved them for it and were prepared to pay more.
7. Enter popular culture
Jesus cunningly trained his sales team (those 12 disciples of his) to spread the word by entering popular culture rather than using big pomp and ceremony to impose his beliefs on society. The disciples got among the crowds and started sharing Jesus’ teachings using word of mouth.
Riverford’s approach was to play the long-game and build a network of followers who would then recruit more followers by waxing lyrical about the offer. Word of mouth marketing. The best kind of marketing. They also adopted a franchise model which was immensely scalable and helped build personal relationships on a doorstep level.
8. Become ideas centred
Well this one was easy. The Bible was literally Jesus’s brand bible. It laid out all the ideas in an easy to understand and simple to follow instruction manual! And it was his followers who wrote the “good book.” They kept adapting its ideas to the times just like a great brand encourages its teams to do.
Jesus was selling an ideology, but so was Riverford. And it’s that ideology that attracts the talent needed to make the brand thrive. Ideas-centred brands see themselves not as factories but as idea factories. People there constantly build, discuss, and iterate on ideas. They open their eyes to possibilities, rather than live in a “no but” world. You’ll know you’ve got it right when you have a “yes and…” culture.
And we then went on to add even more of our own!
9. Riverford is a franchise network, just like the church!
10. And the franchisees are key to running that network just like the clergy
So, why compare branding to religion?
We wanted to translate the science of good challenger brands, design, and marketing into something everyone could relate to. We wanted to avoid “marketing bollocks”.
We made it clear we weren’t being blasphemous or taking the Lord’s name in vain. However, even for the non-religious, the story’s familiarity and parallels made it a useful and actionable framework that also got a few smiles.
It was a great ice-breaker which helped us crack on with the project feeling inspired and aligned.
Today, Riverford is thriving and growing. Our work was done back in 2016-18. It was a big effort to refocus the company’s identity and train people on the new world of Riverford. However, it was worth it as the vision, mission and values became even easier to communicate across all its touchpoints.
As part of the rebrand, we created the rallying cry “Live Life on the Veg” which ended up in classrooms as an example of best practice branding!
We also made a subtle name change from “Riverford Organic Farms” to “Riverford Organic Farmers” to stress their identity as collection of incredible people not places.
And the rest, as they say, is history!
Want to see how challenger thinking could transform your business? Get in touch.
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