Shepherds Purse Blog

Since March, we've had a tough time, along with most people and businesses. When the Coronavirus crisis hit, we saw 50% of our business disappear when restaurants, events and some deli counters were forced to close. As we scrambled to secure the future of Shepherds Purse, we sought to apply for all the grants we could. Unfortunately, we slipped through the gap and weren't eligible for any government grants - except for Furlough which did prove to be vital.

So, we applied for any opportunity of support that we could find.

One of those was to win one of a limited number of £10,000 Sky AdSmart campaigns. It sounded amazing, we applied. I think this was in April, although I can't be 100% sure on that, as so much was happening, and we applied for a number of supportive offers in those early days!

May went by in A blur

So many things happened, so much changed as we worked hard to keep taking milk, keep making cheese and serve our customers old and new, as they were all facing challenges too. And then we launched our new format Fettle on May 4th after incredible work through April to make it happen.

Learn more about how you can help support British Sheep Milk farmers here

June - we were selected!

On June 1st an email arrived in my inbox, announcing that we'd been selected to receive one of the 'SME250 Sky AdSmart campaigns' - "Wow! Amazing" I thought!  The only tricky bit was that whilst it normally takes 12 weeks to create a TV Ad, we had to get one produced in just 4 weeks. From concept, to getting it approved by ClearCast (I Googled it too!) to production and then launch in only 4 weeks. 

We had our campaign running to save our sheep milk farmers and had launched Fettle, so it seemed obvious that we would anchor our ad to this...

But how to create a 30-second advert in 4 weeks?!

Thankfully, Matthew and the team at YourFilm exist.

And over the next month we worked with the team there. and with the help of the images made by RobotFood, and photography we already had here, we created our ad. We couldn't believe that we were going to have a TV Ad but we didn't have the time to over think it. We had to crack on. 

One of the biggest things at our side was the voiceover.

We always thought that we would use a proper voiceover artist if we ever did an ad. Voiceover artists are amazing and we rate the value they bring. However, once the script was written, and it was first person and very much our voice; we felt we had to bring the authenticity of doing it ourselves. So, the voice you hear is my sister, Katie's. I think she nailed it - but she better not stop cheesemaking and disappear to the city to become a famous voiceover artist!

We managed to get a little extension, and our advert began showing on TV on July 13th 2020. Absolutely incredible. If you'd told me in March that we would have a national TV ad running in July this year, I would never have believed you. 

Thanks to Sky AdSmart, to Chris, to Matthew and the team at YourFilm. Now, we have a chance to let more people know about our campaign to Save Our Sheep Milk, and support the retailers who have supported us, too. 

We hope you like our first ever advert!

We hope you see it on TV throughout July and the beginning of August, but incase you don't, you can also see it on our new YouTube channel. If you like it, it would be amazing if you could subscribe to our channel, share it and hit the "thumbs up" on the video itself too.

Here it is...the finished ad in all its glory

Thanks everyone for your support

This year has been tough and there's no doubt that challenges remain, but the support and opportunities like this have been really uplifting and energising.

Caroline,

xx