Total familiarity of Wild Alaska Pollock Hits the Highest Recorded Since Tracking Began

 

SEATTLE, Wash.— Total familiarity with Wild Alaska Pollock increased by an astounding 6 percentage points since tracking consumer familiarity began in 2019, said data experts from Ketchum Analytics at the Wild Alaska Pollock Annual Meeting this morning in Seattle. During the sixth industry annual meeting, hosted by the Association of Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers (GAPP), data experts Melissa Kinch and Lauren Hasse of Ketchum noted that, in looking at other white fish as a benchmark for performance, Wild Alaska Pollock last year, for the first time, outpaced Haddock on familiarity, positive opinion and intent to eat, and this year, Wild Alaska Pollock is—for the first time—closing the gap with both Tilapia and Cod on those same indicators.

“We specifically saw an increase in familiarity among Millennials (up 10ppts), low-income consumers (up 10ppt) and those who think fish sustainability is important (up 5ppt) compared to last year,” said Hasse to the nearly 300 attendees joining the meeting both in person and online. “The last spike in familiarity we [Wild Alaska Pollock] had was in 2022—which is also a year where GAPP had a very active influencer campaign, with one of the waves launching right before the survey was fielded.”

Similarly, the results saw that positive opinion of Wild Alaska Pollock is up this year, by 3 percentage points. While positive opinion is up, both Hasse and Kinch noted that there’s opportunity to continue pushing consumers down the purchase funnel as growth in familiarity is slightly outpacing positive opinion.

“We see that the more people know about Wild Alaska Pollock, the more positive opinion they have of it,” explained Kinch. “Seventy-two percent of those who know a lot about Wild Alaska Pollock have an excellent or very good opinion of it versus forty-eight percent who know ‘some’ and twenty-six percent who know ‘a little’.”

Ketchum noted that GAPP’s marketing and communications priorities have greatly contributed to the sharp spike in total familiarity, emphasizing that the communications emphasis on both the origin and sustainability of Wild Alaska Pollock are closely aligned with what’s “top of mind” for U.S. consumers.

Similarly, Ketchum commended GAPP’s work with influencers to drive awareness and familiarity and introduce more consumers to Wild Alaska Pollock, noting that the last time the year-over-year survey showed a similar increase in familiarity corresponded with the very active GAPP influencer marketing campaign in 2022 where the survey was fielded immediately after a “wave” of the campaign.

GAPP’s Craig Morris showcased GAPP’s work on this front, as well, during his remarks earlier in the morning, noting that GAPP has worked over the last year to strengthen its influencer program, and the current GAPP influencer have combined followings of more than 1.65 million consumers. Similarly, GAPP has grown its own social media following and presence, using video content to attract consumers to learn more about the fish and fishery.

“While it’s one thing to create fun, lively and engaging content—it’s another thing to achieve the intended results. Our [GAPP’s owned social media] total impressions are up over 1000 percent and our engagements are up over 2000 percent,” said Morris, GAPP’s Chief Executive Officer.  “We’ve seen massive video growth across all of our platforms—let’s just say ‘Dutch’ [the Alaska Pollock mascot] has become quite the star—with total views on TikTok surpassing 1.5 million.”

Importantly, Ketchum’s experts encouraged the industry to embrace current economic circumstances—like inflation—that may be negative for consumers as they are a potentially huge opportunity for Wild Alaska Pollock.

“Consumers are becoming more price sensitive, and fish has an inherent connotation as expensive,” said Kinch. “As such, fish eaters are turning to frozen fish options that they view as more affordable. Over one-fourth of fish eaters who have noticed a price increase in fish over the last year are turning to frozen fish options—Wild Alaska Pollock needs to embrace and own its ‘frozen-ness’.”

“Consumers are becoming even more price sensitive, and fish has an inherent connotation as expensive,” said Kinch. “Three-fourths of consumers have noticed a price increase in fish over the last year—with beef, dairy and chicken the only animal products outpacing fish. Amid these rising prices, fish eaters are prioritizing affordability and value in their fish purchases—and turning to frozen. Wild Alaska Pollock needs to embrace its ‘frozen-ness’ and see it as a positive attribute not a negative.” 

Ketchum also noted that the industry needs to continue to focus messaging on Wild Alaska Pollock’s ease of preparation and create recipe content that is similarly few ingredients and quick and easy for busy consumers to follow and prepare. Similarly, Ketchum continued to push the industry to work on increasing the fish’s visibility at retail, doing more in-store activations, cooking demonstrations and partnerships with retailers.

Interestingly, Ketchum noted a huge increase in documentary video content—nearly five percentage points and encouraged the industry to continue looking to video for its storytelling efforts.

“While family & friends and fishers remain the top sources fish eaters trust when it comes to news & info about fish, we saw an increase in trust of documentaries compared to last year. This is likely driven by the increase in food documentaries that have been released over the last year and we particularly see younger consumers leaning more on documentaries,” explained Hasse. “There’s opportunity to lean into this style of content, both branded and unbranded, to drive trust with our fish-eating audience.”

“We should be telling the Wild Alaska Pollock story—whether it’s messaging around sustainability, provenance, value or ease via earned media that reaches a fish-eating audience,” added Kinch.

The meeting once again brings together representatives across all segments of the Wild Alaska Pollock industry for a day-long agenda at the W Hotel, Seattle.

GAPP would like to thank its generous sponsors for this year’s event: USI Insurance Services (Title); Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, Glacier Fish Company, and Global Seas (Gold); Alaska Airlines, American Seafoods, Aquamar, Arctic Storm Management Group, Beck Pack Systems, Delta Western, Gorton’s Seafood, NORPEL, Port of Seattle, Rabobank, Trans-Ocean Products, Trident Seafoods, UniSea, and Westward Seafoods (Silver); Ag West Farm Credit, APICDA, Alaska Marine Lines, Arionbanki, Baader, Clark Nuber, Coastal Transportation, Golden Alaska Seafoods, High Liner Foods, Íslandsbanki, Ketchum, King & Prince Seafoods, Lafferty’s EMS, Lucky Louie Fish Shack, Marine Stewardship Council, McDonald’s, NSEDC, Parker, Smith & Feek, PPLP, Rogge Co. (Charlie’s Produce), and Wells Fargo (Bronze); Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, Angulas-Aguinaga, Bank of America, Frontier Packaging, Global Seafood Alliance, Industrial Resources, Inc., InnaSea Media, Neptune Snacks, Perkins Coie, Restaurant Depot, Seattle Tacoma Box, Umpqua Bank, and U.S. Electric (Supporting).