Newsline - Marketing

Florida marketing campaign aims to boost ailing shrimp industry
The campaign features an “Ask for Shrimp from Florida” seal

The Florida Bureau of Seafood and Aquaculture Marketing in late May launched a multi-tiered marketing campaign, dubbed “Florida Shrimp, Wild and Wonderful,” to persuade consumers to buy wild Florida shrimp instead of farmed, imported product.

“Our goal is to educate consumers so when they go to the supermarket … they ask for Florida shrimp,” says Dot Williamson, development representative supervisor for the seafood marketing bureau.

The purpose of the campaign is to boost Florida’s ailing shrimp industry, which contributes 4,400 jobs and nearly $100 million to the state’s economy. The average ex-vessel price of Florida shrimp declined 38 percent from 2000 to 2002, due to the influx of shrimp imports, according to the bureau.

As a result, Congress last year allotted $35 million in federal aid to shrimp fishermen from the Carolinas to Texas. Florida received almost $7 million, $1.2 million of which was set aside for marketing purposes over a three-year period.

The “Florida Shrimp, Wild and Wonderful” campaign, which targets Florida consumers, features an “Ask for Shrimp from Florida” seal on point-of-purchase materials, such as brochures, posters and static clings the bureau distributes to retailers. The seal also appears on a race car owned by Florida native Bobby Jones in the national ARCA racing series.

The bureau administers a program that offers Florida shrimp at reduced prices to retailers that advertise it. Participants include Kroger, Publix, Winn-Dixie, Giant Foods, Kash n’ Karry and H.E. Butt.

At the foodservice level, the bureau has partnered with several Florida chefs, including Allen Susser of Chef Allen’s in Aventura and Michelle Bernstein of Azul at the Mandarin Orient Hotel in Miami, to promote Florida shrimp at supermarket-cooking demos and on TV cooking shows.

The campaign also features 30- and 60-second TV and radio public-service ads and a new Web site, www.wildfloridashrimp.com, which includes recipes and information on Florida shrimp and the industry.

Oregon seafood sales benefit from state marketing boost
Brand Oregon campaign helps seafood commissions leverage promotional money

This month, ads on Portland, Ore., area radio stations and billboards along the Interstate 5 corridor will remind Oregonians and tourists visiting the Beaver State about the quality and abundance of locally caught albacore tuna.

The ads are as part of the year-long Oregon Wild Seafood campaign, the seafood component of a new Brand Oregon campaign to promote all products from Oregon.

The state of Oregon started the campaign in late April, with salmon as its first focus. That leg of the promotion, combined with recent negative media coverage about farmed salmon, was responsible, says the Oregon Albacore Commission, for propelling prices of troll-caught Oregon salmon to $6.99 a pound for whole, large fish, up about $2 from last year.

Timed to coincide with species’ seasonal abundance, the campaign touted the benefits of shrimp in May. In early November, the focus will shift to sole and then to Dungeness crab later that month, just before the season begins on Dec. 1.

Retailers, including Whole Foods Market, Zupan’s, New Seasons, Roth’s, Wizer’s, Fred Meyer and Albertsons, promoted Oregon seafood with point-of-purchase materials.

“This is the first time the seafood industry has done much in-state promoting,” says Nick Furman, executive director of the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission and administrator of the Oregon Albacore Commission.

Brand Oregon, a state-government initiative, approached Oregon’s four seafood commissions with its project just as the groups had decided to pool their resources to fund a marketing effort.

To pay for the campaign, each commission spent $15,000, matched by $15,000 each from the state’s Brand Oregon program and the Pacific Seafood Group, the state’s largest seafood company.

The $90,000 expenditure achieved an estimated value of $250,000 due to pro bono work on the Oregon Seafood campaign by local ad agency Wieden + Kennedy, famous for developing Nike’s Just Do It campaign in the late 1980s. Clear Channel Communications, another local company, donated radio time and billboard space.

Orca Bay to distribute Sushi
Deal takes Trans-Ocean’s frozen product nationwide

Orca Bay Foods of Seattle inked a deal in late May to distribute Trans-Ocean Products’ Thaw & Serve Sushi nationwide to foodservice distributors and operators.

The frozen sushi, produced with a patent-pending process, was introduced by Trans-Ocean of Bellingham, Wash., earlier this year. Orca Bay has a strong position with major broadline distributors and an extensive broker network that will further the product’s reach in the foodservice category, says Louis Shaheen, vice president of sales and marketing for Trans-Ocean.

“We recognized we needed a partner to help sell our Thaw & Serve Sushi to foodservice,” says Shaheen. “Orca Bay was an easy choice because of their knowledge of seafood, solid reputation, national distribution and location in the Pacific Northwest.”

Thaw & Serve Sushi is perfect for foodservice operators who couldn’t conceive of offering sushi previously, says Mark Tupper, national sales manager at Orca Bay. The product has been popular with business and institutional feeders such as universities and hotel chains, adds Shaheen.

Trans-Ocean will continue to handle retail sushi sales. The sushi rolls are available in several varieties: California, spicy crab, spicy Oregon shrimp, spicy albacore tuna, vegetable and smoked salmon with cream cheese.

A new grab ’n go retail package with a black tray and a wraparound cover was launched this month. The seven-piece retail pack includes soy sauce, wasabi and ginger packets.