Rearing creativity: could agriculture be the ultimate ad school?

I grew up on a Devon sheep farm, but somewhere along the way I switched pitchforks for pitches and ended up a Copywriter. While at first glance my bumpkin upbringing and London ad life might not seem to have much in common, I like to think that actually this couldn’t be further from the truth. The older I get, the more I feel my farm-rearing was in fact the ideal way to ready myself for the cattle market that is advertising. Need convincing? Here’s a run down of the best advertising lessons I picked up on the farm.

Getting creative can solve (almost) anything. 
Farmers are some of the most creative people you’ll ever meet. Give them a length of bailer cord and they’ll give you a belt, a gate fastening, a hitch, a dog lead and a way to stop that exhaust from rattling. When the closest shop is a fair schlep away, you learn to think laterally and see possibility in anything. Once you’ve seen an upturned car bonnet being used as a sledge it’s hard to understand why there aren’t more farmers in the creative industries. 

The work needs to happen when the work needs to happen. 
Have you ever tried asking the weather for a deadline extension? Farming is all about making hay while the sun is shining – and scrambling like hell to get it in when it’s about to stop. Yes, that can mean all nighters and forgetting what a weekend is. While I am a champion of better work/life balance, this understanding of getting the job done when it needs to be done has served me well on many a pitch and deadline. And makes me constantly grateful that mother nature isn’t my client. 

Humour in the face of adversity. 
If there’s one group that knows things don’t always go quite to plan, it’s farmers. When having a good day depends on the cooperation of both animals and the weather, you learn to prepare for some bumps in the lane. And when those curveballs inevitably come, they know the best thing you can do is laugh at the situation you’ve found yourself in and plough on. Afterall, having a hissy fit never helped get a sheep out of a ditch. 

Become a little bit of an expert in everything.
I’ve never met a farmer who isn’t also a bit of a mechanic, plumber, builder, landscaper, veterinary assistant and midwife. This versatility is something I’ve always found interesting, and not unlike how we dive into our clients’ businesses – learning and absorbing things which don’t quite feel like they fit with our jobs at all. The things I could tell you about bubble tea and baby food are testament to this…but not something I bring up at parties. 

Remember to speak to people in their language. 
As a Copywriter, you start every sentence thinking about who you’re speaking to – how much they already know about the subject, how formal you should be. That’s definitely something I picked up on the farm. You try speaking to my grandad without slipping into his thick Devonian accent. Add on top of that a distinct dialect and all the farm specific language – you really have to know your ewes from your yearlings for anyone to take you seriously. And that’s when you’re talking to people. Ever got a sheep in without saying ‘here tibby tibby tibby’? I didn’t think so. 

Muck in.
This one’s pretty obvious but it really does straddle both camps: get stuck in. Farming has taught me that there’s a real joy in doing. A comradery in getting involved and making something happen. Looking at a stack of silage bales knowing you wrapped some of those, and flicking through a finished pitch deck seeing that great bespoke OOH you suggested feels roughly the same – trust me. 

Even if you don’t know how to finish a job, start it. 
I don’t know that my mother would agree with this one – many half finished jobs blight our farm. But sometimes you’ve got to start something to figure out how to finish. As many creatives will know, nothing can be more daunting than that blank page. So dig that hole, cut that wire, knock down that wall: just get started. 

And last, but by no means least, I reckon there’s one piece of advertising advice that I reckon most farmers I know would agree with: never work with animals.