Co-op News (August 2019)

HOW DO YOU MARKET THE
CO-OPERATIVE
IDENTITY?
BY MILES HADFIELD
Questions surrounding co-op culture and identity are vital to current efforts
to double the size of the UK movement: how do we preserve that culture during
the growth process, and how do we make that culture inclusive to new people brought
into the movement? This year’s Co-op Congress, held in Manchester in June, looked
at how to grow the movement – and included a look at the implications of this for
marketing the co-op identity, and questions on how to engage youth in co-op culture.
Co-operative identity came under the
microscope at a Co-op Congress 2019
session when representatives from two
leading co-ops discussed ways it can
be marketed.
Pete Westall, chief values officer at the
Midcounties Co-op, whose operations
include retail, funerals, energy, telecoms
and childcare, said embedding the
identity “at the heart of customer
experience” is especially important,
given the society’s range of operations.
He gave the example of the Midcounties’
nursery business, Co-op Childcare. With
all nurseries rated good or outstanding
by Ofsted, the society had “licence to do
something a bit different”.
Firstly, Midcounties is using member
insight, and encouraging every parent
who has a child at one of its nurseries to
become a member.
“How do we reflect member needs and
wishes in what we do in those nurseries?”
asked Mr Westall. “We ask their priorities.
They came back saying it was education
– with education on the environment at
the top.”
In response, the society set up an ecoschool
programme, showing children
where food comes from, and ensuring
food transparency in the nursery’s meals.
This drive to put a message consistently
across all nurseries is replicated
throughout the society, with member
experience the key to Midcounties’
co-op culture. “Putting members at the
heart of what we do is important,” said Mr
Westall, “and we have one person on our
executive team whose job that is.
“The culture is different – for the
first time there is accountability at
management level to make sure we stick
to those values.”
Different challenges in establishing
a co-op culture among members is faced
by Openfield, the UK’s only national grain
marketing co-op – a large organisation
with a turnover of £650m, supplying
numerous high-profile customers.
Marketing manager Richard Kaye
described efforts to “get everyone on
board with what we are”, including the
farmers who own it, its customers and
i t ss t a ff .
To do this, Mr Kaye led efforts to clean
up Openfield’s “muddled” messaging and
branding, to explain simply the full range
of its services and client base.
He said Openfield is using the word
“partnership” to stress its co-operative
difference from foreign-owned grain plcs
who send their profits overseas.
All these messages are integrated, he
added, so that “everyone can talk about
how they add value to the Openfield
Partnership”.
Asked why he had opted for the word
partnership, Mr Kaye said communicating
the co-op identity is a “challenge”.
“Partnership is my modern way of
translating it,” he said. “We consulted the
farmers and people didn’t understand
‘co-operative’; but they did understand
‘partnership’. As we move forward I want
to go back to that. A line in the material
does say we’re the only national grain
marketing co-op.”
32 | AUGUST 2019