The Canadian lobster industry is well on its way to developing a national branding campaign after a series of meetings establishing the desired promotional messages.
Halifax, Nova Scotia-based Lobster Council of Canada is in the midst of a three-month research project to develop a national brand identity for the lobster fishery and its multimillion-dollar processing industry.
“We have commoditized lobster in some ways, but it is still a premium, king-of-the-ocean product, and we have to remind people of that,” Geoff Irvine, executive director of the Lobster Council of Canada, told SeafoodSource.
While Maine lobster gets most of the attention in the international marketplace, Canada is the primary supplier of lobster globally, Irvine pointed out. In addition, the Canadian industry wants to draw attention to its wide variety of processed, value-added lobster products and raise the value of the fishery. In fact, processed products account for around CDN 600 million (USD 547 million, EUR 400 million) of the estimated CDN 1 billion (USD 911.7 million, EUR 666.4 million) in Canadian lobster exports annually.
“We have developed new markets that feature hundreds of products that we haven’t had before. Developing new markets has been a good thing, but it has meant lower prices for the harvesters. The idea of branding is to tell that unique story and hopefully sell more product at higher prices,” Irvine said.
After a series of meetings with stakeholders and working with branding agency Revolve Branding, the campaign messaging and creative will be developed by the end of March. The campaign will be rolled out to Canadian lobster exporters, international buyers and others within the seafood industry.
The campaign will likely discuss the “pillars” of the Canadian lobster brand, which include the story of independent fishermen who supply lobsters, the sustainability of the shellfish, the rich history of the brand, and its high quality, according to Irvine.
Next, the Canadian Lobster Council wants to develop a nationwide marketing campaign focusing on consumers. “We are working on promoting an industry levy system that would be collected from both the harvesting and live shipping/processing sectors of the industry and be used to fund the campaign. The campaign would be managed by the Lobster Council and we would also apply for funding from provincial and federal governments,” Irvine said.
