The Crow’s Nest
It’s not about giving the smartest answer… it’s about asking the sharpest questions.
More seafood into more kitchens.
Join me on the journey through the blue economy as I explore thoughts, probe questions, and share personal reflections.
Lets take a deeper dive to look at our relationship with seafood and the blue economy
Catch of the Day
Today’s Freshest News
The Human Side of Product Marketing
Product marketing is not about monologuing our way into a one-time purchase, a lustful hunger that can be satisfied by proximity rather than choice. It is about pointing the light ahead on their journey, rather than shining a light on ourselves; proving that our product and all its features help them better navigate through the twists and turns of life towards that sought after end-state.
In a Marketing Week article Mimi Turner, of the B2B Institute, joked that “if B2C marketers thought like B2B marketers, Coca-Cola would market itself as “brown, fizzy, and sweet”. Forget those cuddly polar bears, Coke just needs to let customers know that it’s 98% effective in reducing thirst.”
The Fall of Icarus and The Chasm
Standing at the edge, looking across the gap, leaders in the seafood industry are asking variations of the same question “How do we make it across successfully?”
In an attempt to position our brand in the marketplace, we run the risk of, as Icarus himself, flying too high; concentrating on our product merely as a functional element.
The Demise of an Empire, A New Sun Rises
Today, breaking out of the traditional mold and restructuring business models doesn’t carry the same risks that it did a couple of decades ago; we have much more freedom to test markets and products with minimal capital and scale accordingly when we strike a winning market-product match.
Albeit, this type of freedom and prosperity has its price; the price of talking with our consumers. The price of building and marketing our brand.
Lessons From the Dark Underworld of Branding
It is just as important to define our brand’s purpose as it is to show who our brand is, that is what our community looks like. While our businesses will most likely not be violently facing off against others, if you’re looking for a bare knuckle street brawl to defend the sanctity of almond milk over whole milk… you should seek some help… professional help, sooner than later; they are standing for a belief: principles and a purpose. And as we can see from the success that re-branding an idea, not changing it, but simply showing a different face, has on its reach; we cannot neglect the power of the human element in branding.
Wandering the Stale Plains of Consumer Markets
Let us imagine living in a world devoid of meaning, one in which our only purpose is to produce an output that functions as an input for a system; the byproduct being our very existence. I am not the first to envision this dystopian scenario; many authors, scientists and philosophers have questioned life and its purpose. Theories varying from insignificance to the functional even up to the divine and transcendental; the purpose of life apparently continues to evade consensus.
The Bleeding Edge of Utilitarian Marketing.
Beauty has no place in a world that only values the utilitarian and rejects all which it does not understand or which requires patience. Pages in magazines, hours of videos on Youtube, photos on social media, and entire websites demonstrate how their products work for us in our daily lives. In his 2009 documentary film, Roger Scruton, a philosopher, questions what the use is for a friendship? What is the use of an engaging conversation? You’re not going to use it for an end, but a certain warmth that radiates from the love, the beauty of empathy and compassion envelops you. What is the use of music? Why do we feel overwhelmed with emotions whenever we hear a piano sonata or a violin suite?
We have lived a life deprived from the freedom to search out beauty, markets are inundated with utilitarian products and services. We find ourselves in a world that lacks compassion, where our channels of communication are saturated with solutions to evermore complex problems that originate from deeper needs. A world without beauty is a world that is ill.
