What you need to know:

• Twelve months after acquired by Canadian-based Cooke brands, and flush with acquired prawn and barramundi proteins in its portfolio, Tassal has embarked on a brand positioning overhauling and masterbrand strategy.
• The Tasmanian-owned business has adopted the new tagline, 'Tassal – It’s Australian for seafood', following extensive investments into brand tracking and a new data-driven outlook on understand brand impact, salience and differentiation.
• Head of marketing and sales, Matt Vince, has also been invested in marketing mix modelling to better understand media investments and ROI. Combined with a push towards younger demographics, this has seen Tassal’s media mix change.
• The business has also struck multi-year partnerships with its agencies to introduce more skin in the game. This, along with commercial upskilling of the team and recruiting new headcount, is all aligned with the quest to take a data-driven and unified marketing/sales/innovation approach to growth.

Bigger fish to fry

It was one of two substantial investments into data-driven marketing – in this case, a renewed approach to brand tracking with Kantar – that told Tassal head of marketing and sales, Matt Vince, exactly how far the historic Tasmanian brand could stretch across the Australian and international seafood food chain.

Having been acquired by Canadian-based Cooke brands in 2022 and returned to private ownership, Tassal was facing the hard commercial question of whether to run a portfolio of brands or attempt to extend its masterbrand to new types of marine species. Two further trigger points: The acquisition of Tropic Co prawns in Queensland for $31.9 million in 2018; and the August 2023 acquisition of WA-based Cone Bay Barramundi farm for $8m.

Through an overhauled brand tracking partnership with Kantar, the company engaged in consumer testing, which showed Tassal could well stand for more than the Apple Isle and salmon fillets.

“We had a level of comfort that it does resonate to Australia – we did test prawn and barramundi against that Australian piece of our brand and that was a no-brainer for us,” Vince says.

These insights fed into the launch of a new brand platform, new brand moniker, ‘Tassal – It’s Australian for Seafood’, plus a fresh series of integrated campaigns. These kicked off with salmon in November, then prawns and the retirement of the Tropic Co brand in the next couple of months. Tassal-branded barramundi advertising is on its way in 2024.

“The tweak of ‘Tasmanian for salmon’ to ‘Australian for seafood’ has started to get some resonance and provides a platform to talk about more things. We won’t rule out further acquisition or further species coming into the brand,” Vince says. “Tassal gives us that great platform for any future Australian species that might come in.”

But taking Tassal beyond its Australian heritage and historic provenance? Not a chance.

“We tested another seafood brand, called Cooke Seafood, which includes great species from around the world that can’t be grown in Australia but which we can now bring here. We tested via customer panels and Kantar relationship to see if Tassal could stretch to US sea scallops as an example. Basically, the resounding answer was no – Tassal is grounded in that Australian provenance,” Vince says.

“We’re very clear now anything Australian grown or procured is under the Tassal moniker, but we have established a Cooke Seafood brand to be our international importation and species execution.”

Eying Arnott's template

A commitment to data-driven media and marketing investment off the back of significant company change has seen Vince firstly reshape brand tracking, then bring on marketing mix modelling (MMM) vendor, Mutinex. Tassal has since exited this partnership, moving its media modelling and ROI work to Kantar.

“There have been some big pivot points where we’ve needed to ask, such as: Do we stay the course with what we have got? We had Tassal on salmon, Tropic Co on prawns; once barramundi came into the pitch, the question was if we’re ever going to be a Diageo with 25 staple brands. The answer: Probably not,” Vince comments.  

“Because we understood by then the value of our brand and what we mean to consumers, it made sense to fold everything under the Tassal brand.”  

Tassal has adopted Kantar’s typology around star and iconic brands, as well as started analysing meaningful, differentiation, and salience metrics. It’s measuring against 15 key category competitors and upped tracking from annually to monthly.

“Tassal is considered a star brand across the whole protein category. We have an ambition to become iconic,” Vince says. “Take the biscuit category in Australia: Oreo is the star brand, but Arnott’s is iconic. We’re clear now about putting a stake in the ground and saying we want every Australian consumer who consumes protein to consider us with that halo the biscuit consumer would think about with Arnott’s. That means different things in terms of meaningful, differentiation and salience, so we’re going to be quite prescriptive and deliberate about the things we’re trying to do.

“That enabled us to start putting meat on the bones around what our brand means to consumers. We have an ROI measure we flipped from Mutinex into Kantar to complement that whole back-end brand tracking and ROI.”

Investing to understand the right media mix was also critical for Vince. This had not previously been measured.

“Yet we were spending money mostly below-the-line, but in recent years, above-the-line,” Vince explains. “We also weren’t looking at when our competitors were advertising or share of industry. So we really became data-driven.”

Giving agencies skin

Another important step has been building longer-term partnerships with agencies, including Havas Host (creative), Havas Media (media), Communicado (PR), research (Kantar) and design (APR Creative).

“It’s really hard to plan longer term when you are doing things on a campaign-by-campaign basis. We have great partners including from a media and creative perspective in the Havas team. We then have a below-the line agency in Melbourne called APR, plus Kantar brand tracking and ROI,” Vince says. “These are all on multi-year contracts, so they all have skin in the game. Some of the KPIs and payments are based on deliverables and specific KPIs, too.

“Combined, these things have set us on a course to have confidence we could pivot the brand, that we could get the back end right to have more conversations not only at a board level, which changed when we went back to private ownership, but have data that drives conversations with the CEO and c-suite.”

It’s a fair step forward for a business that has historically been farming led. Today, Tassal is tracking somewhere between $500m and $1bn business in annual revenue.

“The business didn’t understand the value and worth of the brand,” Vince says. “Now, we can say outside of the Coles and Woolworths brands, we’re the most powerful protein brand in the country. It’s something we can hang our hat on.”

Media remix: Linear TV out

By nature, Vince is quite analytical. “When I go to the CEO and request more money to reach more consumers and get more cut through, how can I prove that if I don’t have that information at hand?” he asks. “That’s where media mix modelling and return on investment was critically important.

“For example, perhaps our old board wanted to see us on TV because it’s tangible. But we’ve had great return on investment from YouTube. The business had never done Pinterest or TikTok before, which we have now introduced, because we get better value for money.

“Maybe it limits reach, which TV over-indexes on, but for dollar spent and dollar earned, we’re achieving a great result. So much so, that for this year with the new campaign, we’re not on free-to-air anymore; it’s all streaming services and catch-up TV. That can make the dollar go further.”

Vince positions media modelling and brand tracking as two sides of the coin. “One is how much should we spend and where to spend it; the other is where are we today and where are we trying to go,” he says.

“If it’s a salience problem, we focus on and measure that. If it’s a differentiation problem, it might mean more innovation and being product-led or channel-led. It’s probably hedging my bets, but media mix modelling and understanding the value of brand and its potential future value meant we could start to influence getting more money for the brand to invest. It means we can influence customers about more ranging, and it means being more deliberate about who we are targeting and why.”

New campaign notes

Right now, Vince and the team are closely watching the debut of Tassal’s new integrated brand campaign in November.

A mix of 15 and 30-second films plus other media placements, the creative message plays on the premise of ‘he’s/she’s/they’re on salmon’ and features a hero character proudly taking his place in a synchronised swimming troop. A group of female swimmers on the sidelines ask what his secret might be (hint: salmon).

The work adopts the new moniker ‘Tassal – It’s Australian for seafood’, replacing the Tasmanian-specific tagline. As it rolls out, the integrated brand platform is all underpinned by the concept ‘It must be Tassal’.

The latest salmon campaign is running in multi-format OOH, BVOD, high-impact display, social, search paired with PR, ambassadors, influencer and owned media activations. Ambassadors include celebrity chef and restauranteur, Guy Turland, plus dietician, Susie Burrell. Tassal also updated owned assets including a new website design supporting all three proteins (salmon, prawns, barramundi).

As well as getting people to focus on the experience and feeling they get eating salmon, rather than purely the health benefits, Tassal’s latest campaign is designed to appeal to a younger demographic.

“Seafood historically over-indexes in 40-plus, but we know consumers want a better experience at a younger age,” Vince says. “It’s how we spruik that message that’s the next evolution, while not alienating our core demographic.

“It has meant we need to spend money in more mediums, like Pinterest and TikTok, that we previously weren’t in. We deliberately reshaped our go-to-market strategy but also our product offerings.”

Vince flags new alfoil tray packaging based on the insight that younger consumers apparently hate touching fish and worry more than older demographics about how to cook seafood.

“It’s making conscious decisions, but not about trading one off for the other; it’s about incremental investment to bring new consumers into the brand as well,” he says.

At the same time, Tassal has had to respond to cost-of-living pressures and changing attitudes towards value. As one of the more expensive proteins, salmon prices continued to rise over the past six months, while other proteins such as chicken and lamb, have gone down.

“Part of the execution period is to make sure we really home in on that value equation and that salmon is a source of health, nutrition, but also that salmon and our brand can mean so much more to the consumer’s repertoire than a private-label beef or lamb,” Vince says.  

“We have also tried to innovate into other entry levels, such as salmon burgers, salmon tenders, which are like chicken nuggets but feature salmon. These are more entry-level price points. By also launching at this time, the advertising campaign, although focused on fillets and portions, delivers a halo effect for these cheaper alternatives in the category.”

Sustainability and salmon farming

Vince paints a rosy picture of the consumer marketing work to date. Against this, Tassal’s corporate brand has arguably been taking a beating as animal welfare and the environmental impact of salmon farming comes under increased scrutiny.

The company is one of three salmon fishing companies experiencing backlash from a vocal group of community stakeholders and restauranteurs questioning its sustainability practices and detrimental impact on the environment.

Action plans released by the Tasmanian Government were criticised earlier this year for not going far enough in terms of detail and steps.

Last month, Federal environmental minister Tanya Plibersek warned salmon fishing by 11 farmers including Tassal in Tasmania’s Macquarie Harbour could be temporarily paused due to concerns about its impact on the endangered Maugean Skate. It’s worth noting hydro operations and climate change are also considered factors in declining skate numbers.

Mi3 asked Vince how much of this is factoring into his brand positioning, go-to-market and how Tassal tracks brand and impact. In response, he notes six months into his tenure with Tassal, the book by well-known author, Richard Flanagan, entitled Toxic, was released focusing on the seedy underbelly of the salmon industry. He also acknowledges noise around salmon farming, particularly in Tasmania.

By comparison, 97 per cent of its salmon products are consumed on the Australian mainland. “There has been no decrease in sales with that noise,” Vince says.

“But to your point, we’re very conscious of, and are making sure we have a lens on this on the corporate side of our brand, and to be as transparent as we can be.”

By way of example, Vince says Tassal continues to provide annual sustainability reports from a corporate responsibility perspective, even though it doesn’t have to as a privately owned business. Tracking the corporate brand versus consumer brand also show sustainability drivers for both are distinctly different.

“We do ask our own questions of consumers to understand what’s important to them around certain aspects of business, such as sustainability. Our feedback has all been around the product itself, packaging and vessel it’s in. Consumers have a basic understanding there are animal welfare standards in place and there are certifications in this space,” he says.  

“It is a tight-wire to manage a corporate and consumer brand when you’re named the same thing. But are seeing different drivers and therefore have different communication strategies for both.”

2024 macro forces 

Sustainability is one of several macro forces Tassal must contend with. Another is country of origin labelling, which will be introduced in the hospitality trade from 2025. For Vince, this will “massively” help position seafood in a new light.

“We think country origin labelling will help not only the industry, but open up a great opportunity to promote our brand in that ‘out of home’ channel, as we call it, with visibility and transparency to consumers moving forward,” he says.

Meanwhile, Vince is shoring up commercial skillsets in the business under his marketing, sales and innovation united “commercial hub”. Tassal has recruited across all three functions as well as invested in upskilling teams to lift analytical and commercial expertise.

“We want salespeople not to just be numbers-focused, but talk about marketing and recognise the brand has value and it’s important. It’s the same with innovation – it’s not just making shiny stuff, we want to make great, insight-led offerings,” Vince says.  

“In this country, you can have the best tasting product, but if Coles and Woolworths don’t range it, it will never become scalable. That’s not just a marketing perspective – we have that across the whole team to make sure we have right cultural fit, commercial savviness and breadth of talent.”