Milcobel: the power of a cooperative brand

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The Milcobel dairy cooperative collects, processes and sells milk from 2,800 dairy farms in Belgium. The dairy farmers supply the milk and are the shareholders of the cooperative. Milcobel partnered with Think BBDO to align the cooperative’s operations and communications with the continually-evolving reality of the Milcobel brand.

In addition to the brands in the Milcobel portfolio, the dairy cooperative also wanted to position itself as a strong brand. Its target audience includes existing or future employees, cooperative members, and external stakeholders.

Milcobel primarily wants to become the unifying force between the different dairy farmers, who are nowadays increasingly entrepreneurs.

Our solution

Our first objective was to increase Milcobel’s appeal and brand awareness. For this, we needed to be backed up by a strong brand, underpinned by the message of a modern cooperative: “together we do better”.

To achieve this, the cooperative needed a new positioning and brand story. Think BBDO conducted a structured, participatory, and co-creative collaborative process with Milcobel. After a first phase, which consisted of a qualitative stakeholder survey, we organised a positioning workshop, in which we laid the foundation for the brand of the future.

“Milk. Our profession, our future.”

The summary and output of this workshop were used to create a brand book, titled “Milk. Our profession, our future”. The brand book told the Milcobel story, in text and images. This high-quality branding book was distributed among the 2,800 dairy farmers, the cooperative’s employees, and other important stakeholders.

In addition to this, Think BBDO also developed a communication strategy, defining the objectives, the target audiences, and the communication plan. The idea was to do a ‘soft’ launch of the brand in various phases, in the coming months and years, starting with the internal target groups and employees. We also overhauled the cooperative’s existing corporate style.

Based on the new positioning, Think BBDO also developed the creative concept for all employer branding communication and campaigns.

Branding, Corporate communication

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