4.) Functionality –the watchword in seafood marketing
It’s not surprising, given the thick coating of smog hanging over Beijing for much of this year, that Chinese consumers are looking for products that improve or guard their health.
More and more Chinese shoppers are seeking out products that have particular health functions. This is creating opportunities for seafood suppliers whose products have a genuine health function.
Unfortunately, it has also opened a window for phony marketing, which has come to pervade the seafood sector in China. Famously, sea cucumbers, oysters and abalone have long been sold to Chinese men as stimulants of sexual drive, physical strength, and hair growth.
There is also marketing with a hint of truth; cod (often common cod sold as pricey sablefish) is being presented on Chinese shelves as having health benefits for children and the elderly.
As potent as health claims can be as a sales force for seafood in China, ill-founded rumors of illness caused by bad seafood can be exponentially more damaging. Chinese consumers are too easily scared by online rumors – as the recent wave of alleged cases of gout, indigestion, and disease caused by crab consumption have revealed.
