Pangasius branding and promotion campaign

Since 2016, Globally Cool and the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) are conducting several ongoing PR and marketing campaigns to promote and improve the consumer’s perception of pangasius.

Products

Pangasius

Year

2016 – 2021

Country

EU (general)

Type of activity

  • Branding and Promotion
  • Consulting
  • Digital Marketing

Year

2016 – 2021

Country

EU (general)

Type of activity

  • Branding and Promotion
  • Consulting
  • Digital Marketing
In 2016, Globally Cool and the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) started to jointly conduct several PR campaigns to improve the perception of pangasius in European markets. Pangasius is a fish that has been struggling with a poor reputation over the last decade. Especially in Western European markets several news items and TV documentaries contributed to a negative sentiment, claiming bad practices and irresponsible farming in Vietnam. For many influencers and consumers, it was clear that the fish has serious issues. The damage was done and the impact to the industry in Vietnam was significant. Its exports decreased by 25% to below USD 1.5 billion, leading to a considerable loss of employment and closing of businesses. The objective of the ongoing PR campaigns is to counter the negative sentiment around pangasius by bringing out factual information and positive news to stop the sentiment from spreading in EU markets like the Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain. Globally Cool conducts several PR campaigns in these markets including activities such as social media campaigns, online marketing, press releases, press trips, trade fair participations and the like. Part of the campaign is to keep the online presence of ‘Your everyday fish’ fresh, increase the engagement with the fan base in the social channels and contribute to effective trade fair participation.

Activities

Among the activities are:
  • Website development and content management activities such as security updates, WordPress management etc.
  • Actively updating the websites with pangasius blog posts, news articles, testimonials and recipes of consumers, exporter information and press kits.
  • Actively updating youreverydayfish.com and adding fresh content in 5 languages on 5 domains (Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Italy, global).
  • Special content creation with a focus on video, such as attractive 15-second recipe videos and videos showing pangasius recipes from different countries.
  • Development of fresh content being: pangasius blog posts, news articles, testimonials, pangasius food pictures, recipes of consumers, exporter information and press kits.
  • Contests on e.g. pangasius quotes and videos of consumers.
  • Heavy SEO campaigns.
  • Intensive posting on social media channels – 4 Facebook posts (2 Dutch, 2 English), 2 Instagram posts and 2 Pinterest per week via a campaign calendar, to increase the reach, interaction and number of page likes.
  • Facebook ads campaign among the targeted food lovers in English speaking target markets. The campaign had 2 components: one was to increase the fan base. The second was to increase engagement.
  • Repeated participation in B2B events such as the Seafood Expo Global in Brussels, hereby supporting VASEP in effective trade fair participation through branded promotion items, live cooking demo’s
  • Contributing to various B2B seminars at the SEG trade fair, facilitating panel discussions and dissemination of factual updates from the Vietnamese fisheries sector.
  • Consumer awareness-raising – social media campaigns, supermarket demos and prize contests.
  • Buyer engagement – in-depth interviews with leading buyers in the sector to learn their opinion on the Youreverydayfish websites, where they see improvements for both the website and the overall promotion of Pangasius amongst buyers and consumers.

Results

Five Youreverydayfish websites were created and are managed intensively. They can be accessed from www.youreverydayfish.com. The websites all include information on healthy aspects of the fish, stressing its sustainable aspects hereby highlighting relevant sustainable aquaculture certifications such as ASC. Besides, numerous pangasius recipes, as well as blogs, news articles, testimonials, press kits and exporter information, special content, was created. Together with a professional chef and in cooperation with university students, five cooking videos were produced and shared on the social channels of Youreverydayfish. In addition, the visibility of the websites in Google has increased due to heavy SEO campaigns that were carried out. As a result, Google results represent more factual information and positive news around pangasius. Through the social media channels of Youreverydayfish (mainly Facebook, which is available in four languages) interaction with thousands of consumers in Europe has been established. This has increased the number of likes on each Facebook page considerably - up to 10.000 in total.