If we hadn’t had some pretty robust research in our back pocket we might have chickened out, but we put our faith in the data and took the plunge. And it worked. We knew that Open Gates had the potential to change people’s minds about how they felt about our farmers and Fonterra and it certainly did that – 77% of people who visited a farm felt more positive towards Fonterra and 17% of people who came on farm changed from feeling neutral towards Fonterra to becoming advocates for us. However, the campaign worked on another level too. Just by the act of opening up people saw us as more transparent and open, and people who saw the Open Gates campaign gave us a higher reputation score than those who hadn’t.
So that’s why we ran Open Gates again recently. This year we got to do an even better job, which led over 8,400 people enjoying a day out at one of our farms, meeting our hardworking farmers, seeing the care that they show to their animals and land. For many, this was the start of their new relationship with the Fonterra brand.
If you didn’t get along to Open Gates this year you can see what happened at www.opengates.co.nz.