When fast food outlet McDonald’s wanted to improve its rating for trust in its brand in 2011, at a time when trust was a rare commodity among the Irish population and global brand businesses were attracting increasing opprobrium, it turned to an Irish farmer, Liam Delaney from Co Laois, to spearhead an extensive marketing communications campaign.

The campaign was a huge success, significantly enhancing attribute ratings for the brand, but also increasing sales and market share.

When the German discounters Aldi and Lidl wanted to display their local credentials and demonstrate their undying love for all things Irish, they invested heavily in the National Ploughing Championships, introducing their Irish farmer suppliers to all and sundry. Aldi even went so far as to sponsor RTÉ’s radio coverage of the event in 2013.

In 2012, when Batchelors wanted to halt the decline of its tinned peas range it used a trio of Irish farmers posing à la the Chippendales, with suitably provocative headlines; "Fancy a bit on the side" and "Have me on the table". (Full disclosure: one of the farmers was John Fanning, no relation!)

Visit any supermarket or speciality food store and you will find it hard to find a pack that doesn’t have a rugged Irish farmer beaming at you and proudly asserting that the product you are holding in your hand started out life in his field or his cow.

Stardom

What’s going on here? How has the Irish farmer been elevated to super-selling stardom? Why has he – it’s invariably a he – become the sexy symbol and smiling face of the Great Recession? The obvious reason in these food-obsessed times is a concern for food provenance and the dangerous complexities of the global food chain, which were revealed by the recent “horsemeat” scandal. If you’re worried about where your food comes from and what goes into it, the smiley face of an Irish farmer leaning against a five-bar gate is very reassuring.

There is also the fact that numerous market research surveys in recent years have shown a preference for buying local among Irish consumers. Buying locally produced food not only creates much needed employment, but is environmentally sound and tastes better.

However, the current deification of the Irish farmer may have deeper roots. The ideas underpinning advertising are usually guided by qualitative research that seeks to understand the hopes and fears of the intended audience, but are also informed by the intuitive grasp of what is going on in society that characterises the best creative talent in advertising agencies.

In trying to come to terms with the sociological trauma of our sudden economic fall from grace, they may have come to the conclusion that having become disillusioned with God in the late 20th century we have now become disillusioned with mammon and are seeking solace in community values.

Earlier this year a Bord Bia survey noted that one of the consequences of the recession was “a move to collective reconnection – people have a sense that they belong togeth er and have a collective future replacing the individualism of the boom years”. With their long meitheal tradition it is not difficult to see how the Irish farmer is the ideal representation of this trend.

Other advertisers who are tapping into this mood include Kellogg’s, whose “Field of Dreams” promotion was targeted at communities offering a chance to win a €100,000 makeover to their local pitch is a good example, and the success of last year’s Gathering was due mainly to people coming together to create their own initiatives in local areas.

It could be argued that the success of the Gathering was in large measure due to the inspired decision by the Government to make it clear at the outset that there was no money available to fund individual projects. This encouraged people to concentrate their energy on their own local initiatives rather than trying to wangle as much as they could from the State.

Poet laureate

Although the Irish farmer may epitomise this movement, it is not confined to rural areas. The great poet laureate of Carrick–on-Suir, Michael Coady, has been celebrating communal values in his elegantly produced Gallery Press volumes since the 1980s:

“Who whenever need arises/will not fail to lift or carry/you or one another/or to comfort whenever/ there are those in need/of comforting, just as they/themselves will be/eventually – all of whom you know/would

grant you grace/ and do the necessary/for you, just as they’d assume/you’d do for them/in the ordinary way.”

John Fanning is a lecturer at UCD Smurfit Business School and is former chairman and managing director of McConnells Advertising