A four-week Norwegian salmon-campaign ends today Friday 25 September 2015 in Hongkong. For a month buses and inside MRTs have been decorated with posters and ads featuring pictures of Norwegian salmon. The campaign has been the very first Business-to-Customer campaign by Norwegian Seafood Council.
The campaign had a budget around HK$5 million and was created to make Hong Kong aware of the fact that the salmon they eat comes from Norway.
“No place in the world eats more raw salmon per capita than in Hong Kong. We want to make people aware of that the little unknown fact that most of the salmon does not come from Japan, but from Norway,” says Sigmund Bjørgo, director of mainland China and Hong Kong at the Norwegian Seafood Council.
Raw salmon is a big deal in Hong Kong. The raw type is the majority of salmon consumed in both Hong Kong and China. According to Sigmund Bjørgo the Hong Kong market share of Norwegian salmon is 97%, but it is a different story in China: since 2010 there has been imposed import restriction for Norwegian salmon after Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo received the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway. Therefore Norwegian Seafood Council has only focused their campaign to Hong Kong.
Not only has the campaign using outdoor ads as posters on buses, shelters, MRT-stations etc., but has also let the customer being a part of it.
“We coorporated with 12 restaurants where we engaged dining guests to take a picture of their salmon dish and post it on Facebook. The restaurant would then pick different pictures and give the owner of the winner-picture a free meal. This has been a double effect to our campaign and has been a huge success among dining consumers,” says Sigmund Bjørgo. Still, the most important factor for the campaign was the displaying posters on transports and inside buses.
After the campaign Norwegian Seafood Council will measure the results via an annual online survey administered by TNS of 20,000 respondents.
“We expect increased sale and consumption of Norwegian salmon on behalf of this campaign,” Sigmund Bjørgo says.
Sources: www.campaignasia.com