The Sweet Strawberries Lesson for Brands

In California we are lucky enough to have an abundance of agriculture. Seeing a fruit or vegetable stand is common here, especially closer to the California Valley. Most of the time, you may even have friends who own a farm and offer their produce to you. The agriculture market here is thriving and amazing. Although California is prone to drought issues, our market is saturated with farms and crops. We are not short on options! Good for us…. bad for business.

Just as we see these veggie or fruit tables setup frequently, we also are offered these items in grocery stores, veggie box subscriptions, local Farmers’ Markets, or even just local farm-stands you can stop by to pick up produce. The plentiful harvest of options available creates a commodity market for these farmers.

Farms will try to market differently or perhaps even create events that draw traffic to their farm. They offer tours, gift baskets, play areas for kids, petting zoos, you name it. However, while I was driving North on the 101 Highway, I saw one sign that caught my eye….

As you may have guessed, with these many options come advertising. From social media to billboards and print ads, you’ll see farmers use these, but the most common is the classic painted sign proclaiming fresh produce.

Along the 101 Hwy, you see a lot of these painted signs. They are usually grouped all together as well since these properties are typically within proximity of each other. In one of these groups, a single painted sign stood out to me. Not by the way it was painted or how it looked, but by what it said…

“Very Sweet Strawberries”

This caught my eye and as I drove I reflected on why that sign stood out. All the other signs were telling me to take the offramp. All the others signs had “apple” “sweet strawberries” “fresh produce” and more, yet adding the simple adverb of “very” before sweet made it stick.

Their choice to intensify the sweetness of the strawberries by using “very” made me reframe their offering. Yes I know fruit is sweet and I’ve had sweet strawberries before, but we all remember those moments when we get lucky and bite into a very sweet strawberry. It’s a different experience.

Maybe that’s why it worked. It reframed the adjective of “sweet” as not just a descriptor but an experiential moment that we can all recall. It elevated their offering and made it stick in my mind as the preferred option. Of course I buy sweet strawberries, no one wants to buy bland strawberries. However, by intensifying my desire for sweetness they have doubled down on my desire and reduced my “risk” of buying a batch of average strawberries.

As I’ve written about before, sometimes the obvious is the most effective. Brand and marketing can be very magical. It can transform a simple sign into a brilliant strategy that costs close to nothing. I’m curious what the ROI on this sign has been for this farmstand. I would bet it has effortlessly increased traffic, customer satisfaction, and is very memorable.