The moments places become unforgettable.
belonging
“People forget transactions quickly. They remember experiences for life. Memory changes things.” John S · Agritourism Training Academy · Perth, WA
WHAT IT'S ALWAYS BEEN
Every farm, garden, playpark and food destination faces the same problem.
People visit. People enjoy it. People go home. Then, nothing. No connection. No reason to return. No story in the back seat on the way home. Just a receipt and a jar of jam that sits in the back of the pantry. They remember the price point. Until someone feels guilty enough to open it to spread onto the overpriced sour-dough loaf they bought at the same time.
The industry calls this footfall. Craig calls it a missed opportunity.
John Stanley calls it commodity selling. He's spent over forty years watching farms, garden centres and food destinations do exactly that. Competing on price, proximity and promotions. While the one thing nobody else can replicate. Their story, sits unspoken in the soil.
Memory Marketing changes that.
WHAT IS MEMORY MARKETING?
It's not about selling more. It's about being remembered longer.
Memory Marketing is the philosophy that the most valuable thing a place can give a family is not a product. It's a feeling. A story. A character. A moment that lives in a child's memory and pulls a family back through the gate.
John Stanley developed the concept across decades of consulting with farms, garden centres and agritourism destinations on six continents. The principle is simple, people don't deeply remember what they bought. They remember what they felt. What they heard. What their child wouldn't stop talking about on the drive home.
Storylands is the system that makes that happen. Deliberately. Repeatably. At scale.
WHAT COMMODITY SELLING LOOKS LIKE
A farm with a gift shop. Generic products. No story on the label. A family visits, buys a candle and a bag of chestnuts, goes home. Forgets the name of the place by Tuesday.
WHAT MEMORY MARKETING LOOKS LIKE
A farm with a character. A story that travels home. Audio yarn at bedtime. A colouring page on the kitchen table. A recipe that gets cooked on Sunday. A family that comes back because the next chapter is waiting.
THE DIFFERENCE
One creates a transaction. The other creates a relationship. One competes on price. The other becomes irreplaceable. One is similar to their neighbour. The other creates Onlyness. One sells a product. The other builds a legacy.
“The future belongs to businesses that create experiences people remember.” John S · JSA & Associates · Perth, WA
THE STORYTELLING SYSTEM
How Storylands turns Memory Marketing into a working commercial platform.
Six things that happen when a place finds its story.
ONE
A character is born
Not a generic mascot. A real character grown from the specific soil, history, animals and people of that exact place. Nobody else can own it because nobody else is that place. That's the onlyness. That's where the story starts.
TWO
The story travels home
Audio yarns for bedtime. Ebooks for rainy afternoons. Colouring pages for kitchen tables. Recipe cards for Sunday cooking. The story leaves the farm gate & lives in the family home, which means the farm lives there too.
THREE
The platform connects everything
Storylands Atlas is not just one farm. It's a growing world of real places all connected by the same story thread. A family who loves Chucky Chestnut discovers Souci. Discovers Pingle's Farm. Discovers Chestnut Brae. The atlas grows every time a new chapter is added & every family gets pulled deeper into the world.
CHESTNUT BRAE
Nannup, Western Australia
John from Chestnut Brae & Craig sat down on the homestead verandah. Overlooking the lake and the orchards and asked a question nobody in agritourism was asking properly. What if the farm's story was the product?
Not the chutney. Not the gift card. Not the farmers market stand.
The story.
Chucky Chestnut was born from that conversation. A character grown from real land, real trees, real history. The kind of character a four year old asks for by name at bedtime. The kind of story that brings a family back for the next chapter.
John calls it Memory Marketing. Craig calls it Storyselling. Both mean the same thing. Both just as powerful on their own, but together. Magical. When a place tells its story properly, families don't just visit.
They return to again & again.
For each update. Each new chapter.
"People may visit for a moment. Memories are what make them return." John S · Chestnut Brae · Nannup, Western Australia
"Products just get consumed. Stories resonate and get carried forward." Craig W · Storylands Atlas · Perth, Western Australia
THE CHICKEN COOP
Pingles Farm. Ontario, Canada
Building the Onlyness.
Georgia left Souci on that fence post back in Nannup. Souci eventually found her way back to Georgia. Back to to Pingle's Farm in Ontario.
Alyson didn't just embrace the story. She helped build the world.
The Chicken Coop at Pingle's. A part of a story playpark designed by the magicians at Cap.co. Becomes the physical home of the Thunderclucks, Georgia, Souci & chapters of characters that kids now ask about by name on the drive home.
Content they watch, listen, learn & laugh, together with their families. On their way to & from the farm and at home winding down after a big day. Five, ten, fifteen peaceful, soulful minutes.
The Pingle's chapter is the proof of concept. A real farm. A real playpark. Real characters. Real families who come back.
This is the Onlyness, you can only get from Pingles Farm.
What's yours?
"I love your passion and zeal for storytelling and feel honoured that Pingle's and our story would form the backbone of Storylands Atlas" Alyson M · Pingle's Farm · Ontario, Canada
THE PARTNERS
The people who belived first.
AGRITOURISM TRAINING ACADEMY
Perth, Western Australia
JOHN STANLEY
Five decades. Six continents. The man who coined Memory Marketing. The art of making a place live in a family long after they've driven home. John has seen agritourism grow from farm gate sales to multimillion dollar enterprises and has spent his career helping businesses worldwide turn that shift into something extraordinary.
He owns Chestnut Brae with his wife Linda. One of the top ten agritourism destinations in the world. He was there on the Storylands conversation. He saw it immediately. He's been part of it ever since.
LARA JOHNSON
Where John sees the big picture, Lara builds the path to it. With a career spanning tourism, retail, events, outdoor recreation and adult education. Lara specialises in turning great strategy into something a real farm can actually run. Clear systems, practical layouts, trained teams, experiences that work when the weather changes and the visitors keep coming.
Co-founder of the Agritourism Training Academy alongside John. Lara is the reason good ideas become working farms.
Together they are the Agritourism Training Academy. Strategy & implementation. Vision & execution. The big idea and the person who makes it happen on the ground.
"Marketing gets attention. Memory gets loyalty." John S · John Stanley & Associates · Perth, Western Australia
"The businesses that win tomorrow are the ones creating memories today." Lara J · Agritourism Training Academy · Perth, Western Australia
WE ARE CAPCO
Badersfield, UK
The Barns at Pingle's Farm weren't just built. They were designed as part of a physical story world. The Homestead. The Grain Silo. The Chicken Coop. The Windmill. The Double Zipline. Every element a chapter waiting to be climbed, discovered and remembered.
That's what happens when Cap.co builds playparks & Storylands builds stories.
Cap.co are one of the world's leading adventure playpark designers. Holders of the Royal Warrant of Appointment, having built play spaces for Windsor Great Park, Sandringham, Balmoral and The Play at Poundbury. Playparks designed to last. Built with meaning. Rooted in place.
The same philosophy that shaped royal estates now shapes farm adventures.
“To receive a Royal Warrant is such an incredible recognition of our work and we feel extremely honoured. To be endorsed by the Royal Court and to be allowed to fly their flag on our own letterheads is a great achievement and we are all delighted and rather emotional. It’s at times like these that you wish your father were still alive,“ Cap.co founder Simon Egan.
Physical play that starts the story. Storylands content that carries it home.
“The rarest talent in business is making people feel wonder again. Craig has built his life around mastering exactly that.” Simon E · Founder · CAPCO, UK
“The rarest creators in the world are those who can make imagination feel tangible. Craig happens to be one of them.” Johnny L · CAPCO, UK
WHEN REAL PLACES FIND THEIR STORY
A chestnut farm in Western Australia. A family farm park in Ontario. A playpark builder in the UK. A retail consultant who's advised agritourism on six continents. None of them set out to build a platform together.
But Souci got left behind on a fence post in Nannup. And the story started spreading.
That's how all the best ones begin.
"Ask the questions while you still can."