Wild Planet “Blow the Lid Off” Product Launch

Cultural Insight

In 2011, Wild Planet was a very little fish in a very big pond. Unknown to most media and trying to swim with the Big Three (Bumble Bee, StarKist and Chicken of the Sea), I saw the need to make an impact with the editorial community. We had a superior quality, better tasting, sustainably sourced product as compared to the competition and needed to pitch a head-to-head comparison.

Without budget or ability to conduct deskside appointments, I worked with our PR agency to ideate a custom tasting kit to provide writers with an easy way to taste Wild Planet albacore tuna against the well-established market leaders. With planned delivery to top journalists right in time for lunch, this direct mail execution delivered press coverage which put Wild Planet on the map and established long term relationships with numerous editorial teams.

• Strategy focused on using taste comparison as our way in, since data showed that consumers were leaving the category in droves — beginning in 1989 and by as much as 50% by 2000 — due to disappointing quality and taste attributes of the well-known tuna brands available in the U.S.

• Tasting kit modeled a picnic lunch, and included a graphic, informative booklet communicating unique brand attributes and key data points.

• I created a disruptor story for a brand not fearful of challenging industry stalwarts with - simply put - a better product.