Running head: CHICKEN OF THE SEA INTERNATIONAL

Case 3
Chicken of the Sea International

Laura M. Hansmann
Tecnolgico de Monterrey

CHICKEN OF THE SEA INTERNATIONAL

The given case discusses marketing efforts and decisions of the company selling canned tuna
in a highly competitive market, Chicken of the Sea International, which was originally
founded under the name of Van Camp Sea Food Company in 1914. Soon the company began
using the Chicken of the Sea as a trademark to describe the taste of the Tuna to its consumers.
This name has remained in place ever since, just to be expanded to Chicken of the Sea
International in 1997, when Tri-Union Seafoods purchased it. Nowadays, the name is well
known and has a high level of brand equity. Furthermore, the brand identity is strongly related
to its mermaid, which belongs to one of the best-known brand icons in the world. Its main
competitors include StarKist and Bumble Bee, both having a higher percentage of market
share, than Chicken of the Sea itself, and private label brands, which are increasing in
competitive relevance in the market. Generally, the market competitiveness can be seen
clearly in the shift of suppliers the US has been seeing in the last few years: Ecuador used to
be the top exporter to the United States market but was recently replaced by Thailand. The
decline in Ecuadorian exports to the United States in 2007 is probably because Ecuador found
the European market more attractive. (Guillotreau, Sun, Ishimura, 2010). This statement
clearly shows that every penny is turned twice when finding out from where to import the
canned tuna, which by implication shows an extremely competitive and price sensitive
market.
The main topic of the case wraps around the fact that the company is thinking about
employing Jessica Simpson as a spokesperson because of a famous faux pas she did in her TV
show and because of her rising popularity.

1.

Discuss the consumer decision-making process for a product such as

canned/packaged tuna and the response hierarchy model that is most likely to be
applicable in the purchase of this product.

Consumers of canned tuna in general, are primarily motivated to satisfy the need of hunger,
being the lowest level and thereby most basic need in Maslows hierarchy of needs. Initially
consumers might also recognize the need of canned tuna through new products that come to
the market, like the new tuna-salad kit. Thereby, in every situation it depends on how
consumers perceive a certain problem and the resulting motivation to solve this one. Usually,
when dealing with a low involvement product, the customer decides to choose either the
product with the lowest price, the product with which he/she had a good experience and is
used to purchasing, or consolidates friends or family about the brand that they prefer or what

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they would recommend, as part of the external research. When applying the technique of
external research, the opinion of the consumer is influenced in a way that he/she might
become biased towards a specific brand and sometimes, even form an attitude. When
purchasing such a low-involvement product, consumers often develop brand loyalty, due to
post evaluation of their experience with the brand and simplicity of purchasing it again, since
in this case, constant quality can be expected. Generally, in my opinion, I think the AIDA
model can best describe the response hierarchy that applies for purchasing a tuna can or tuna
product from the product range of Chicken of the Sea or its competitors. This model begins by
describing the cognitive stage, which belongs to the first letter, standing for Attention. This
is implemented by having our body signalize that we are hungry and that we feel like having,
e.g. tuna. This information is then transferred into an interest, which belongs to the affective
stage of our response hierarchy model. This interest soon becomes a desire, when we see
the tuna can and get a strong will of purchasing this object or eating it, depends on the
situation. Lastly, we move to action by switching from the affective stage to the behavioural
stage. This process is completed once we have either purchased, or eaten the tuna product.
Considering this process I do share the opinion that Walter R. Nord and Paul Peter express in
and article: We believe that it is useful and desirable to theorize about [] psychological
processes which affect behaviour. However, we maintain that many marketing objectives can
be accomplished without such theories by simply studying environmental conditions and
manipulating them to influence consumer behaviour. (1980). When purchasing it, due to a
perceived lack of product differentiation, usually the price or promotions offered by the brand
at that moment are decisive for the decision of what brand to purchase. Concluding, we can
see that this process is a rather simple one, as explained above, since it regards a low
involvement product, and usually doesnt necessitate large-scale external information research
and evaluations.
2. Discuss the role integrated marketing communications plays on the marketing of
canned/packaged tuna for a company such as Chicken of the Sea International.
How might the company use various IMC tools as part of its marketing
program?
The movement of the canned tuna industry has clearly gone away from employing major use
of media advertising, which respectively forces the companies to lay a higher focus on the
integrated control of marketing efforts of the Chicken of the Sea International brand to
continuously try to differentiate in the highly competitive market. Instead of convincing

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customers to buy their product due to the beautiful and charming mermaid, in my opinion the
company must try to mainly stabilize the image of the brand and re-energize it in the face of
consumers, through various innovative marketing efforts. The vast increase in promotions and
coupons makes the battle over canned tuna customers even more intense. Furthermore, the
shift in attention, and company budgets, puts the retailers in a high responsibility position by
giving them money to promote Chicken of the Sea over other existing brands. Customers are
additionally lured in to interact with the brand through print advertisement, coupons and of
course, interactive websites. This generally is a good approach, but the firm must use its
marketing budget in a way to sustain a constant and mainly consistent reliable communication
towards the customer. The positive application that can be seen in Chicken of the Sea Int.
marketing is that they are not relying on one medium for spreading their message, but are
using a whole variety of marketing efforts. This is positive because they can reach the
consumer in many different ways making it more diversified for the customer himself. If the
company will continue implying an inline IMC that focuses on the values of the brand, they
might be able to regain the trustworthiness and thereby customers that show significantly
higher brand loyalty than simply the promotion offered for this week, as if returning to the old
values of the customer, when they were loyal to the mermaid image and famous symbol of
Chicken of the Sea International. Summing up, the main importance lies in keeping the IMC
elements and marketing mix aligned with the brand strategy and image to communicate a
consistent image that will gradually translate into higher customer loyalty for the product on
the market.
3. Discuss how Chicken of the Seas marketing personnel and advertising agency
might evaluate the appropriateness if using Jessica Simpson as a spokesperson
for the company and whether she is a good fit for the brand.
First, the company and advertising agency have to establish the image and personality that
they want the brand to evoke within consumers minds and more specifically their target
audience. Here they have to take into consideration the trends and favours of the 25-54 year
old women and see what appeals to the entire segment mostly, what character would speak to
them but at the same time represent the company with a proper tone and image. After having
established these aspects, the company can take a look at the traits that would complement
taking Jessica Simpson as a spokesperson for the company and on the other hand find out if
she has any negative traits that the company doesnt want to be related with. After seeing what
side prevails, the company can make a decision in that field. Of course in 2003, Jessica

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Simpson as a spokesperson of the company was a very attractive and interesting outlook
because of her rising popularity among more or less the entire US population. This would
bring the company a lot of attention in the case of employing her for that position. Having
Jessica Simpson show off the tuna, after her exceptional fail on tv in her show asking whether
Chicken of the Sea was actually chicken or tuna, it is questionable if this would bring more
attention to the actress herself or to the company that is paying to get the attention. Her
famous fish faux pas additionally contributed to her image as the ditz blonde, which
might cast a very negative image on the brand itself, even though it was taken humorous by
the crowd. There are lots of opportunities when evaluating if Jessica Simpson should become
spokesperson of Chicken of the Sea, but one should not make the mistake to overlook the
negative effects that her personality and image might have on the brand, that her fame might
put the brand or products in the background and finally that it is a high investment and calls
for an increase in the marketing budget to stem this project.
4. Discuss the pros and cons of Chicken of the Sea International hiring Jessica
Simpson as a spokesperson for the company. Can the company afford to hire her
and spend the money on TV advertising to use her effectively?
The Pros for hiring Jessica Simpson:

Great ground work of well known fish faux pas, can be used as TV advertisement
Through fish faux pas she has already established a connection to Chicken of the

Sea
Rising popularity and great reputation
Teens favour her greatly, so a new market segment may be captured by getting her as a

spokesperson
Might recover brand name and make it up to date and cool

The Cons for hiring Jessica Simpson:

Very high costs specifically for the company because her popularity is rising so its

becoming more expensive by the day

Ditzy image that Jessica has, not considered the smartest, might have a bad effect on

brand image
Highly popular among teens but the target group doesnt include teens so it isnt clear
whether women above 40 are interested in her and want to buy a brand related to her,
the problem here is that this is the main target segment.

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The mermaid image that represents so many values might be dulled or placed in the

shadow
Different types of promotions will have to be applied making it even more expensive.

5. What would you do if you were Don George? Would you recommend that the
company hire Simpson as a spokesperson? Why or why not?
When considering if we would take Jessica Simpson as a spokesperson or not, the decision of
letting her replace the mermaid or not goes hand in hand. This does not mean that one has to
use her as a mermaid if she becomes the spokesperson, but one should be clear about where
exactly to place her. In my opinion I would not let her replace the mermaid, because this is
such an iconic and traditional brand symbol, that moreover receives great popularity among
US citizens. However, I think she can push some fresh winds into the slack sails of Chicken
of the Sea International by targeting a new audience and thereby increasing the target market
significantly. The new segment to be targeted is the one among which, Simpson is seen as
most popular, the teens. By using her as a spokesperson, primarily in advertisements that run
on TV, this specific target is reached very easily by having Simpson capitalize on her
popularity. She will thereby have the ability to increase sales by appealing to the young
market. On the other hand, as I mentioned earlier, I would not risk replacing the mermaid in
any way possible. To keep the image of the mermaid alive, she must also appear in
advertisements or promotions to keep her top of mind in the target segment of women
between 25-54. This can be reached, by having all print-ads, promotions, point of sale ads and
coupons feature the mermaid. This brings another advantage, because by doing so, you clearly
separate the types of advertisements and marketing strategies that target the teens and the ones
that target the old segment, since teens are more likely to be watching TV and thereby seeing
the ad targeted towards them and the mothers are more likely to be looking through
magazines to be finding some type of coupon or just flipping through a newspaper, or walking
through the store in order to purchase the item, where they will then find the well known
mermaid symbol with all the associations it brings with it as well as the conversance. This
possible approach to solving the problem can be classified as lifestyle segmentation and with
that the implementation of the IMC strategy. Lifestyle segmentation is described as the
marriage of two concepts into a single one. One of the concepts is life style patterns and the
other is market segmentation. (Plummer, 1974). This concept allows us to target two
different segments at the same time with different media, by finding out which lifestyle
supports which type of media source. That way both target segments can be approached with

CHICKEN OF THE SEA INTERNATIONAL

the correct tone and manner (the teens with Jessica Simpson and the 25-54 year olds with the
mermaid and coupons) leading to optimal results. By applying such a method, Chicken of the
Sea will bring new innovative strategies to the market and increase its sales, which will then
eventually increase its market share.

Altogether, I think it is interesting to see how an image of a spokesperson can influence a

company image and what parts of the original standpoint and symbol of such an established
brand should be preserved. Furthermore, I liked the discussion of how to address two different
segments with different needs and conceptions at the same time with different advertising
media and methods, which may still keep the IMC plan consistent. The implementation of
Maslows hierarchy of needs in combination with the chose response hierarchy model, gives a
good incentive to go deeper into those two models instead of just memorizing them with no
real clue of where to apply them.
Lastly I liked the fact that the hype of Jessica Simpson was something that we also witnessed
a few years ago, thereby I enjoyed working with the case because I was very sceptic towards
her character and achievements, but this might have changed while thinking about using her
as a brand spokesperson.

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References

Guillotreau, P., Sun, C. H., & Ishimura, G. (2010). Recent developments in the tuna industry:
stocks, fisheries, management, processing, trade and markets. Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations.
Nord, W. R., & Peter, J. P. (1980). A behavior modification perspective on marketing. The
Journal of Marketing, 36-47. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1249975
Plummer, J. T. (1974). The concept and application of life style segmentation. the Journal of
Marketing, 33-37. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1250164?
seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents