The Region of Durham Economic Development and Tourism Division collaborates with Durham Farm Fresh (DFF) to promote local agri-food producers and visiting local farms to residents and visitors. In previous years, Economic Development and Tourism staff delivered an event called Gates Open in collaboration with DFF and participating members, which involved hosting residents and tourism at multiple farms across the Region and enabling agri-tourism and culinary activations on farm.
In 2023, an alternate approach was undertaken that entailed the delivery of a digital marketing campaign to support local agri-food producers.
The Gather at the Farm campaign celebrated DFF’s 30th anniversary during the month of October and encouraged residents and visitors to Gather at the Farm and experience on-farm events, purchase fresh local food, and participate in lively fall themed events.
The Gather at the Farm campaign relied on in-house staff resources for campaign development and management, graphic design, social media programming, creating e-newsletter lists, and deploying communications strategies across a beautiful and compelling campaign to more than 1,000,000 viewers.
A challenge surrounding this campaign was the discontinuation of sharing news articles on Meta platforms and the loss of several community newspapers in Durham just prior to launching this campaign. These changes that occurred required some research to understand how they affected our organization and how to navigate them. To ensure campaign messaging was received, promotions were distributed through a variety of channels.
The Gather campaign included:
The Gather campaign achieved 1,034,629 digital impressions, 14,376 landing page views, and more than 10,000 clicks.
Food grown closer to home decreases carbon emissions by traveling shorter distances and may require less preservatives and waste. Encouraging visitors and residents to Gather at The Farm and purchase fresh food from local farms was positive for sustainability.
Gather at the Farm used digital media to reach a wide audience of potential visitors, promoting opportunities to visit farms with local food or agri-tourism experiences in Durham Region in the fall season, building awareness of Durham as a place with a strong local food offering while supporting economic vitality for agri-food producers.