Farmer Mac

For over 30 years, Farmer Mac has been the secondary market for U.S. agriculture, providing lenders with access to flexible, competitive financing and effective risk management tools to help their American agricultural and rural customers.

Even with their long-standing presence in the market, Farmer Mac struggled with its brand identity. In 2022, they turned to Sage to deepen their brand relationship with a broader customer group.

To achieve this goal, we conducted a comprehensive brand audit, unified their brand message, redesigned their logo and developed a set of brand and style guidelines. In partnership with another contractor, Sage began efforts with discovery; conducting in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, including Farmer Mac’s executive team. We then translated those IDI findings into a tailored communications plan tracking priority needs. We crafted messages that were reflective of individual stakeholder interests, while anchoring those messages in overarching statements about Farmer Mac. We presented logo and tagline concepts that evoked feelings of credibility, partnership, growth and trust – all of which Farmer Mac values with its customer and stakeholder relationships – while holding true to familiar brand elements such as the bold, blue / orange color palette.

With the final messaging and brand assets selected, we built out a comprehensive set of guidelines outlining Farmer Mac’s brand identity (how they describe Farmer Mac), visual branding (how they present Farmer Mac) and verbal branding (how they convey who Farmer Mac is). We translated Farmer Mac’s positioning statement and key supporting attributes into digestible and relatable definitions; we offered rules for using Farmer Mac’s branding assets when alone or coupled with the company’s portfolio of offerings; we set parameters around their typography, full color palette and use of logo on varied backgrounds; and we walked through proper brand tonality, style, and use of trademarked copy.

With this now complete 20+ page set of guidelines, Farmer Mac’s internal teams are able to communicate about Farmer Mac in a cohesive and clear way.