The Sunday market sign this week – from the bees to you - is a more formal piece of signage than last week’s.

This one I love for its simplicity of style and for the beautiful succinctness of its message.

Theoretically, the message on the sign could be just as legitimate if the honey had been farmed in Outer Somewhereorother, shipped across an ocean or two, bought at another place and re-packaged for this local growers’ market. Taken alone, that is. But the implicit message, that there have been no intermediaries other than the bee farmer, is clear and is validated by the fact that the bee farmer himself is here – or his wife on the rare occasion that he is not here himself.

They have the stall set up so you can taste the different honeys and it always fascinates me how different the honey tastes, depending on what plant is involved. Two of my favorites are ironbark and macadamia.

The farmer doesn’t have brochures or flyers. If you have a question he is happy to explain and he clearly loves what he does and what his bees produce. And because his prices are just neatly below, but not too much below, the “no name” honey (shipped from Outer Somewhereorother) at the local supermarket, you would need to have either no functioning taste buds or an iron will, if you were to walk away without buying.

The one change I would make to the sign would be to lose the inverted commas (quotation marks) – but maybe that’s just the unreconstructed English teacher in me.

(I called this post “Honey Man” because that’s how we refer to him, as in, “Is Honey Man here today?” or “Ah, there’s Honey Man!” I’ve had enough chats with him now, I really should find out his real name!)

Marketing lesson for me: tell the story as simply, honestly and directly as you can, know your product and trust the intelligence and taste of your audience to figure out some interesting nuances for themselves.

Do you like this sign? Do you think you could improve on it?