Make your Mark includes an animated smiling logo, playful fonts, bright colours, and bold graphics that reflect the vibrant nature of the food and drinks industry.
In recent years, food security has risen to the top of the agenda because, without question, every person deserves to have reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food.
In 2023, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs commissioned The Independent Review into Labour Shortages in the Food Supply Chain. This has since led businesses, trade bodies and government to collaborate on Mmmake Your Mark, a campaign developed to inspire the next generation of talent to envision their future in food and drink.
Brand and design consultancy BAGGI is behind the design of the campaign, and their core aim is to showcase why the UK’s food and drink industry is such a vibrant place to work. With its previous experience in the food, drink and retail sector, BAGGI was the perfect partner to help them realise their ambitions.
In addition to addressing a labour shortage in the sector, IGD and the Food & Drink Council are striving to address important issues like climate change, food security, nutrition and health, and economic growth. According to its founder, Mark Baxter, this is what drew BAGGI to the project in the first place.
He describes the food and drink sector as “a varied industry that’s continually evolving and one where anything is possible”. To increase awareness and get people excited about job opportunities, three key pillars were identified and visualised through the campaign to help attract people to the industry.
The first is purpose, chosen to convey how “it’s not just about satisfying appetites, it is a place where you can ignite your passions and discover your purpose”, says Baxter. He explains how the second pillar, possibilities, communicates the variety of jobs in the food and drink industry, “from farm to fork, science to sizzle and tech to taste”.
Finally, BAGGI sought to communicate how people can progress in the industry, from entry-level to the executive level. “It was vital that the creative challenged negative perceptions brought these three core principles to life and represented the consumer food and drink sector,” says Baxter.
This meant ditching stuffy B2B codes and designing something playful and meaningful. From the animated smiling logo to playful fonts, bright colours and bold graphics, every element of the campaign reflects the vibrant and fun nature of the industry.
“It needed to feel fresh, exciting and representative of the food and drink brands we all know and love, taking a consumer brand lens and applying it to a B2B2C campaign,” says Baxter.
When coming up with a name for the campaign, the design team felt that the opportunity to have a strong purpose and make a real difference is appealing for young talent, literally making their mark in the sector. Baxter says: “Adding the tastiness and appeal of consumer food and drink brands inspired us to give a more delicious feel ‘Mmmake your Mark’.”
BAGGI also had to consider the two distinct audiences that Mmmake your Mark needed to reach. The first is the food and drink sector, as it’s important for senior leaders, HR teams and people passionate about working in the food and drink sector to take part and help amplify the message through their owned channels and press.
The other audience is new talent, particularly STEM graduates, and so BAGGI created a suite of assets that careers services, colleges, schools, and universities can use to promote the sector to this new generation of talent.
According to Baxter, a toolkit guide and suite of assets were critical to the campaign’s success. He describes it as “a comprehensive resource stuffed with a menu of inspiration, assets and content – everything the industry needs to help bring the campaign to life”.
Assets include a short film, animated logo assets, shorts and reels for socials, design templates for print, digital and presentations, as well as a LinkedIn guide developed with partners to bolster the launch and harness a collective voice across the industry.
