The negativity effect

Can the seafood industry claim salmon farming is sustainable when 2,5 kg fish is needed to grow 1 kg of salmon? This is a “hot” question this week following a swedish documentary which raised questions about the sustainability of salmon farming. I’m not going to try to answer the question, that I’ll leave up to the experts on the field. What I’m more interested in is the flow of communication after the seafood industry was attacked and accused for being unethical.  

In this post, Lars Fredrik has some interesting points regarding this matter. His perspective is the communication strategy of  the seafood industry, so I’m not going to elaborate much on that. My perspective is the consumers and how they behave when hearing negative information. In the consumer behaviour literature there is an effect called the negativity effect which can be useful for bringing an understanding to this perspective. So what is the negativity effect?

Put in short, negative information has more value to the receivers than positive information, hence, they weigh negative information more heavily than positive information when making decisions. This can be explained by the disproportionate number of positive cues in the social environment compared to negative ones. Negative cues are perceived as counter normative and therefore tend to attract a lot of attention. Worse, negative information is heavily attributed to the object that the negative information is directed to, more so than positive cues. Just think about the last time you considered buying a book on Amazon. I suspect that if you read the consumer reviews, the unfavourable ratings had a greater impact on your intention to purchase the book than the positive ratings.

Another issue about negative information is that it spreads fast and extensively. Research has found that dissatisfied consumers might in average spread negative information to 11 acquaintances, while satisfied consumers only tell 3 people. Moreover, negative information is often passed on by people who haven’t had a negative experience themselves, they’ve just heard about it. This last point brings me back to my inital topic on salmon farming and questions regarding sustainability. The day after the documentary, my girl friend said she had become sceptical to salmon due to the negative information brought up in the program. The interesting thing is that she didn’t see the documentary herself, she had just read on Facebook that many of her friends were sceptical. Still, she had become an advocate of negativity against salmon herself. Luckily, I managed to correct her view before she started spreading the negative information to others.

My point is this, negative information is really powerful and can be extremely harmful for businesses that don’t handle it well. So take it seriously and don’t act arrogantly, even if the negative information is false. Perhaps you feel consumers are naive for believing in it, well, then that’s your loss! The consumers’ standard for right and wrong is the only standard that matters. I suggest you listen to them, sympathize with them, and speak with them in a language they understand. If you’re lucky, you’ll then see the emergence of a new effect: The positivity effect!

Start collecting fish stories through crowdsourcing

Almost everyone has a fish story, if it’s about a fun fish trip, about catching ”the big fish”, preparing a delicious fish meal or eating an exotic fish specie. Fish engage people, not always in a postive way though, but everybody has some experience with fish. And because fish is so engaging, it is something people like to talk about, to tell stories about. So why don’t you invite them to tell their stories to you?

Crowdsourcing is a term describing a trend which involves tapping into the collective intelligence of a broad audience.  Generally done using the Internet, crowdsourcing is being used for a variety of tasks in marketing, product design, development and other areas. Over the last year,  crowdsourcing has increasingly been used as a business research tool. The main advantages of crowdsourcing for research are lower costs and access to a broader pool of information.

My idea is that you should use this method to gather fish stories from consumers all around the world, in order to build up av database of stories. Why do I think this is a good idea? First of all because I believe in the power of stories. Stories are much more persuasive and motivating than statistics, yet, statistics are the dominating focus of many businesses. Second, stories go much “deeper” than statistics, and can shade light on issues statistics don’t capture. Third, having a pool of stories that can be used in presentations or advertisments would be very convenient and of great value.

I think the crowdsourcing business will be growing a lot the coming years, so my advice is to jump on the wagon right now. Don’t wait until it’s an established trend and everybody collects their stories. Start collecting now, and you’ll have a nice collection in a year or so that can be used to colour the content of any type of communication you engage in:)

Embrace irrationality

Since I started working with marketing of seafood, I have really discovered how fantastic seafood is. The taste, the versatility and of course the health benefits. Before I had an ambivalent relationship to seafood. I knew I had to eat it because it was good for me, but eating it was more like a duty than a pleasurable choice.

Now that I do know more about seafood I really want other people to know the same thing as I do. For example, I want people to know how many tasty dinner meals one can make from a filet of salmon. I want people to know how easy it is, how much omega 3 you will obtain by eating it, and that it’s quite cheap. I also want people to know that some fish species are “better” than others, for example that cod is a better fish than pangasius. I know these things and therefore it shouldn’t be a problem to get other people to know these things, or what?  

The thing is that I know these things because I think about it a lot. I think about it a lot because it’s my job to think about it a lot. The problem is that most consumers don’t really care about any of these things. They care about the story I can tell them. They care about emotional associations linked to seafood. They care about what other people will think when they tell them that they bought my brand of seafood. Shortly put, they care about irrational sides of my brand, not my rational messages about seafood benefits.

The opportunity, then, is not to insist that consumers get more rational, but instead to embrace just how irrational they are. Give them what they need. Then, in the long run, they will for themselves discover all the rational benefits seafood can give them.

Keep it authentic, no matter who you are

Last week I visited the Norwegian Royal Palace in relation with a dinner event held for the diplomats in Norway. I don’t think it was because of my role as a “seafood ambassador”, but still I felt honoured to be invited and to eat dinner with the Royal familiy. The dinner included four courses and was really a King worthy. But what did we eat? As you can see from the picture to the right, the answer isn’t obvious.

A menu written in french is perhaps not surprising when it’s the Royal Palace we are talking about, especially since most of the guests were diplomats from all over the world. My french is unfortunately below average, so for me the menu wasn’t very informative. However, between all the french words there were a few words in Norwegian which clarified somewhat. But were the Norwegian words there really to clarify for people with poor french skills like my self, or were they there to give the menu an authentic appeal?

My opinion of the Norwegian Royal familiy is that they are very down to earth Norwegians who value the true sides of Norway. These characteristics were incorporated into the menu with the words “trønderfe” and “kraftkar”. Would I have enjoyed the dinner meal equally much if the menu was only written in french? All you rational people out there would probably say “of course you would”. However, I hypothesize that food presented in an authentic way actually taste better than food where there is a mismatch between the communication, the communicator and the food product. Perhaps there already exist research out there which can approve or disapprove this hypothesis, nonetheless, I believe you should do as The King: Keep it authentic!

The health vs. taste dilemma

Fish is healthy, everybody knows that. Since our childhood we are told to eat fish because of that, and to a lesser degree because it’s tasty. Consequently, health is one of the most salient associations people have when thinking about fish. But that shouldn’t necessarily lead to a perception of fish as less tasty, or perhaps that’s exactly what it does?

A study has revealed that the less healthy a food item is portrayed to be, the better is its inferred taste and the more it is enjoyed during actual consumption. Naturally, this means that more healthy food, like fish, is inferred to taste less good and is enjoyed less during consumption.

Many people will probably disagree with this inverted relationship between health and taste, and say it doesn’t work like that for them. They are probably wrong! The associations between the concepts of “unhealthy” and “tasty” operates at an implicit level. A reason for this can be that these associations are rooted in our instinct that “more fun equals less good“. People believe things can be serious, important and useful, or they can be fun, enjoyable and hedonically pleasing. But they can’t be both.

People’s implicit intuition that healthy food is not as tasty as unhealthy food is obviously a huge challenge  for the seafood industry. It means that a lot of consumers who are “in the mood for something tasty” exclude fish from their consideration set. What would be the appropriate strategy to deal with this dilemma?

I believe that the hedonic dimension of fish should be emphazised in a much larger degree. The taste is of course most important in this regard, but linking fish to other “sins” won’t hurt as well. As stated earlier, everybody knows fish is healthy, but do people really know about the pleasure and enjoyment of eating fish? Somehow, sushi seems to go clear of this health vs. taste dilemma. Perhaps the picture below gives a hint of why.

What is your speciality?

 

 

 

 

Marketing is a very broad dicipline, and if you’re into the marketing business you probably experience that there are many things you could do for many different people. Due to your expertise in a field that not everybody has knowledge about you will perhaps experience people wanting you to do more for them, meaning more than your original service offerings. Should you then expand your offerings and become a specialist in yet another field? That seems to be the strategy of the business marketing itself on the picture above.

I found the ad in this blog post, which also tries to imagine, rather ironically, the strategic thinking of the company’s thought behind it. Perhaps the company should take advice from Bill Cosby, who ones said: “I don’t know the secret to success, but the secret to failure is trying to please everybody.”

Give health benefits a face

Last year, omega 3 was the big thing in the food industry, whether you were selling yoghurt, cheese or sausages. Omega 3 was added to every thinkable and unthinkable food product, trying to capitalize on the growing health trend.

I felt the seafood industry was taken a bit off guard, being attacked at one of their main strengths; wholesomeness. With poorly labelled products, seafood producers saw that health concerned and uninformed consumers easily substituted salmon or herring with omega 3 yoghurt. Well, now 2008 is  past and it’s time to get things right. But how do we communicate to consumers that the natural and best way to obtain omega 3 is through certain seafood products?

What about giving the health benefits of seafood a face, or perhaps several faces? Again I’m inspired by the book Made to Stick, which explains how Subway made great success by using Jared Fogle in their marketing communication. Jared lost 245 pounds by eating Subway every day and by exercising regularly. His story was told in numerous commericals for Subway, with great effect. Sales of Subway sandwiches took off!

Prior to this campaign, Subway were running a more rational campaign called “7 sandwiches under 6 grams of fat.” The campaign wasn’t especially successful. This campaign reminds me of some of the omega 3 marketing going on today. Focus is on the nutritional content, not the benefits. And when benefits are mentioned, it’s often in a rational tone referring to some research report. What about finding a person like Jared who can be the face of seafood benefits, adding some emotion to the communication?

This only works in America you will probably say. And maybe you’re right. But answer this. What does omega 3 mean, really? I know it’s good for the heart and the brain, but is that really concrete and engaging. Will people run to the store buying seafood hearing that? Well, it’s certainly not as concrete as a photo of Jared holding up those huge pants he wore before the Subway diet. And it’s not as emotional like the story of Jared, who faced a challenge and overcame it, a true tale of victory.

The mood of the conference

When you are planning the content of a conference, what is your main goal? Is it to give the audience the information they need to take well-informed descions, or is it to bring the audience in a mood that will energize them and make them take action?

In this post, Seth Godin gives you a hint of what you might should do. He argues that it is the mood people seek, not the data:

If all we needed to do great work was information, our problems would be over. The internet is the greatest repository anyone could imagine… if you want to know how to do something, the Net will show you how.

His point is good, but why do I bring it up in relation to conferences? A conference is per definition an event where researchers and opinion leaders present information of various kinds. Well, I think presenting information doesn’t have to comprimise creating the mood people seek.

First of all, there might be other things than the presentations themselves that can bring people in a good mood, eg. the setting, the lighting, sounds, smells etc.

Secondly, presenting data don’t have to hinder giving a presentation that inspire people. The clue is to resist the temptation to let data stand alone. Stories and examples should be the building blocks of the presentation, the data should be the garnish. For more on this topic, read the truly inspiring book Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath.

So when you’re planning a conference, maybe you should ask yourself: What should be the mood of the conference? What would inspire people? What would ignite somebody to walk out of the conference room and take action?

Using Google search data to predict the future

Predicting the future is hard, especially if you don’t have data to base it on. Relying on a gut feeling can of course lead to successful predictions, but with data giving you the path of the history up until today, the chance of getting it right should increase dramatically. But data is normally pretty expensive, and not something every business can afford.

Luckily, and thanks to Google, data exists in large quanta, free to use for everybody. Google Insights for Search is the name of a relatively new service from Google which let you dig into a huge amount of historical search data. The service does, among other things, give you the opportunity to see how popular any search term has been during the past five years. (NB! Since it’s based on popularity, a term can increase in absolute terms but the graph can still show a decrease if other terms increase relatively more.)

So how can we use this data to predict the future? One clue is the graph showing search popularity. The graph below shows the popularity of the search term “sushi”. People keep talking about how trendy sushi is, well here’s your answer. The popularity of sushi has definitely increased since 2004 and shows no sign of declining. Therefore I predict that sushi will be trendy in the future, at least in the short term. Easy or what?;)

 
The second clue that the Google service give you is the “search terms related to …” section. Here you can see which terms related to, for example salmon, are most popular and which are rising the fastest.

Not surprisingly, “salmon recipe” is the most popular search term here. More surprisingly, “the salmon dance” is the fastest rising search term! If it’s the show of three interns at a christmas party in Tromsø people are searching for, or this song by Chemical Brothers, I don’t want to speculate about. Either way, it may be a big hit in 2009!

Low price, but what else?

Yesterday I didn’t want to talk about the recession, today I do. Numerous blogs and news articles have reported on the effects of the financial crisis on various aspects of consumer behaviour. Now I think it’s time to do the same.

The recession will of course effect consumer behaviour, the clue would be to predict in which ways. More price sensitive consumers is an obvious outcome of any recession, but what else? Trendwatching has tried to answer some question about the crisis and its effects on businesses.

Will consumers cut down on luxury items?

- Of course they will. Expect numerous reports on the (temporary) demise of high-ticket items, except in regions where emerging middle classes still depend on flaunting luxury brands.

I think luxurious and expensive seafood, like lobster, will struggle.

Is ‘eco’ still going to be big?

- Sure, certain overpriced organic nice-to-haves will suffer, but we’ll most likely see a surge in what we’ve dubbed “eco-cheap”: cash-strapped consumers going out of their way to save money on energy bills, motorised transport and other waste-prone, eco-unfriendly activities. 

Organic seafood consumption will perhaps go down in the short term, but the trend is about to gain real momentum and will be important within seafood this year and many years to come.

Is this a good time to focus on innovation?

- Any time is a good time to focus on innovation. If you’re doing well, you need to continue to innovate to ward off the inevitable competition, and if you’re not doing so well, you’re obviously not going to crawl out of your mess by downsizing and sitting still.

The seafood industry should really see the recession as an opportunity to gain larger shares of people’s food consumption. Innovation is definitely a key factor for success. Perhaps these ideas can be of inspiration.

And indulgences?

- Big indulgences will be out (they’ll be either too expensive or too flashy, or both), small ones will be in, to lighten the hardship. However, frequently occurring small indulgences may take a hit, as total expenditures on those do add up. Think people’s daily Starbucks fix. So, the golden trend tip for brands in a downturn? Care about your customers. Deliver. Sympathise. Surprise them. Talk to them.

Smoked salmon may do well the coming years due to its semi-indulgent nature. It will be the perfect gift for any occasion, and consumed at home (compared to at restaurants) it’s a cheap and tasteful meal with a sense of indulgence.