The U.S. Tuna Foundation this week will roll out an advertising campaign that seeks to reassure consumers who may have concerns about fish that they can eat tuna as part of a healthy diet.
Commercials featuring the new tag line, “Tuna. Smart Catchâ€, are scheduled to hit the airwaves tomorrow in Pittsburgh and St. Louis, two cities chosen as test markets because their citizens rank right in the middle in terms of tuna consumption - neither above-average nor below. By next year, the ads will be seen nationally.
The multimillion-dollar campaign, a first for the Tuna Foundation, will arrive on television the same week the beef industry is moving to get out its own upbeat message. In the wake of a drumbeat of stories about mad cow disease, beef producers plan a four-week return of the “Beef. It's What's For Dinner?†theme that they've used for years.
Industry image advertising is not new, of course, as anyone who has ever seen a celebrity with a painted mustache asking “Got Milk?†knows. The beef industry has been using the classic Aaron Copland music to tempt people with steaks and red meat-based dishes for years.
But both tuna and beef could benefit from a dose of image boosting. While beef has to cope with mad cow coverage, the tuna companies found themselves answering queries on mercury again in early December when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a draft proposal advising pregnant women to limit their consumption of tuna.
“Consumers are having a hard time balancing what they're hearing about health and diet with what they should feed their families,†said the release announcing the tuna foundation's campaign. “As a result, sales of canned and pouched tuna, one of the healthiest foods out there, have been lackluster for a decade.â€
TV and radio spots developed by Marriner Marketing, an agency in Columbia, Md., use a documentary style and feature women at home discussing reasons they're confident in serving tuna to their families.
“The real issue is tuna is, a magnificent food but all the press out there right now focuses on a negative issue,†said Carol Whitman, Marriner's director of business development.
The Tuna Foundation's members include Del Monte Foods Co., which acquired the StarKist lines a year ago from Pittsburgh's H.J. Heinz Co., as well as Bumble Bee Foods and Chicken of the Sea International. A Del Monte spokeswoman said the company has left such image advertising to the industry group.
In fact, trade groups are sometimes better positioned to build overall interest in a product and to step in when a crisis of some sort hits.