Seafood shelf products such as canned tuna have long been kind of a conservative grocery brand vertical, with a heavy reliance on healthy claims for awareness and couponing to move items in the checkout line. But Chicken of the Sea has decided to try to break out of that shoal and hook customers with an integrated campaign that brings its iconic “mermaid’ character to a number of different platforms, from Web video spots and Facebook to Twitter, casual games and sweepstakes.
Up to now, Chicken of the Sea has concentrated mostly on trade promotions in-store. “In the recent past, we haven’t done a lot of consumer advertising,” says Erin Mrozek, consumer marketing manager for the brand. “There are lots of great recipes and health benefits around canned seafood, but to explain them in a way that stands out from the crowd, we felt we needed to use two of our best assets: the Mermaid and her jingle.”
So in March the 60-year-old brand and agency of record Campbell-Ewald began adding some personality to its trademark figure with a Web video in which she tries to handle the probing questions of a seven-year-old—or actually, a repetitive string of the same question; ‘Why?” The video was used as ad content on Web sites owned by CBS Interactive, ABC Digital, www.Hulu.com and the ViedoEgg ad network. It was also available to visitors on Chicken of the Sea’s Facebook page, its YouTube channel and on a “Rock Talk” page on the main brand Web site.
A second video was added earlier this month, featuring the mermaid, a pirate and some confusion over the word “booty”.
The Mermaid character is also expressing herself these days in Chicken of the Sea’s Twitter feed, where she tweets about recipes but also tells jokes, retweets Facebook polls and other material of interest to followers, answers consumer questions and promotes the “Hot Deals” Facebook tab that highlights special Web-only rebates from retail partners.
“[Prior to launching this brand refresh effort], we felt that we just weren’t really communicating with the customer,” Mrozek says. “The majority of our budget had gone to trade marketing for at-store price discounts. But we hadn’t really talked to the customer in a long time.” Chicken of the Sea had a monthly email newsletter, a “Mermaid Club” loyalty program and even a Facebook page, but they were not getting the level of engagement they were looking for.
For that reason, right now the brand is really focusing on driving traffic to the Facebook page rather than the Web site. “Our Web site is very strong and offers a valuable source of information, but it’s more challenging to engage with a consumer in an ongoing fashion there than it would be on a social media platform,” she says. “We want to be able to be able to talk to the consumer, hear from her, find out what kind of recipes she’s cooking that day, and learn more about what she does and doesn’t do with the product. So we’re really pushing all of our online advertising to our Facebook page.”
The COS Web site home page incorporates a live Twitter feed and numerous links to tabs on the Facebook profile. Visitors to the product and recipe pages on the web site can also click to like those elements to Facebook. Campbell-Ewald handles the content creation and management for Chicken of the Sea’s social efforts.
In all this social media, the Mermaid “has a lot to say about health, nutrition and convenience, but she’s also got a lot to say about society, pop culture and current events,” says Mrozek. “Her personality makes her someone you’d be interested in following and learning more about, rather than a voice simply touting a recipe full of Omega-3.”
Pre-campaign research suggested two things, says Mrozek. First, people were aware of but confused by those health claims in the seafood category. And second, the Chicken of the Sea brand itself had a long legacy of trust with consumers but hadn’t actually been building on that heritage. “We were in their mothers’ and grandmothers’ pantries for as long as they could remember, but the brand hadn’t been brought to life in a long time. Even though it has been around forever, it was kind of becoming a forgotten brand. So we decided to bring it back to life.”
That meant rejuvenating the brand for today’s female 25-54 demographic. “She spends a whole lot of time online, whether interacting with Facebook, searching for recipes or just playing games,” Mrozek says. “So we said, ‘Let’s put some of our money there and try to reach her in a fun new way.’”
As a result, while Chicken of the Sea is running a fairly conventional sweepstakes offering a trip to a Disney park for the funniest kids’ quote (the contest closes June 6), it’s also running more open-ended social engagement efforts such as a poll to determine the best ingredient mix-ins with tuna and a Mer-Madness tuna recipe bracket during the NCAA Playoffs to determine which of 16 tuna recipes was the winner.
In March the brand also partnered with online game site www.GSN.com to integrate Chicken of the Sea into a free Web game,” Undersea Treasure Match”. In the game, players cast lines across spinning slot reels to “catch” mermaids or tuna cans and win tokens for more play. The branded game attracted more than 4 million total plays and averaged about 150,000 plays per day during the first six weeks it was on the site. That was sufficient for GSN.com to give it a week as the featured game in their Facebook app and to ensure that the branded game will remain on GSN.com’s site at least until August 2011.
The ability to talk to and engage customers directly, without the intermediation of a retailer, is a particularly benefit for a brand in Chicken of the Sea’s product category.
“In retail stores, the packaging is very small, so you have limited space to communicate; the number of titles is overwhelming; and the brands are all pretty much making the same claims,” Mrozek says. “So we had to figure out a way to stand out from the crowd. We felt a strong online presence could help us do that. And so far we’ve been very pleased.”
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