Save the tuna

Save the whales, sure. How about the tuna?

The Economist recently ran a feature on the state of the world's oceans. They reported on the diminishing stocks of tuna. Apparently, among other things, the growing taste for sushi and sashimi in the west and protein in the east is contributing to over fishing of tuna. Some species of tuna are now endangered.

This photo shows 185gram cans of tuna selling for 50c at Coles supermarkets in Australia. The low price point is clearly stimulating demand as these empty shelves show. Surely this is unethical retail behaviour?

It is interesting to me how there is general sympathy with the save the whales campaign, and consumers would probably not buy and eat ocean mammals like whales & dolphins, yet tuna is purchased and eaten with a seemingly ever increasing appetite. Canned tuna is particularly offensive, being the stored outcome of over-fishing which could not be consumed fresh, it is preserved stored and ultimately sold for next to nothing. I wonder why the tuna issue hasn't caught on with the environmentalists, vegetarians, Greenpeace and the like?

Maybe it is time for legislation to target canned tuna with some sort of sustainability tax to slow demand?

1 comments:

bottlingclouds said...

yep, so true... and I bet that 99.9% of the members of that facebook group 'Fuck off Japan leave the whales alone!' will happily chow through tins of tuna without any conflicted feelings whatsoever.

I fear though that the only way we can save them is by making them taste disgusting. Mass hypnotherapy?

February 3, 2009 2:36 AM

School boy errror

I had to laugh. I almost walked into this bus stop advertisement. Can you see what's wrong with it?

There are so many schools teaching graphic design and 'visual communications' these days and yet simple errors, like the relationship between text and image, are often overlooked. The team that designed and proofed this ad should have noticed that the names of the actors are clearly misplaced. Kate is on the left, Leonardo is on the right. I had to remark "school boy error!".

1 comments:

Kitt said...

unfortunately it's more common than you'd think

It used to annoy me until i realised that the poster designers didn't really care about the relationship of the the position of the stars names to their pictures


Here's a few i found doing a quick scan

http://sorenz.dk/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/124.jpg

http://www.collider.com/uploads/imageGallery/Deception/deception_movie_poster_version_2_onesheet.jpg

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLgB2O9LXaLA_DfXYRoXe3DgCoOYwEmvZNNVQ4bjjU6HNbEr9RlLxzPrY_AWhWWtNaG54OUIjX3hviCsBe1GLK_cLmvwxyD4KvDcNpWH_5qbBns6O3IRfm3EWzshBHeUr1bWSC41Rm-2w/s400/WildHogsMoviePoster.jpg

February 18, 2009 4:49 AM

Kitt said...

I have an explanation for the supposed logic used here. I think it's in order of fame/importance from left to right?

February 18, 2009 5:20 PM

International marketing

I read recently that aspirational businesses will need to invest more in developing multi-lingual web content. This is of course a fairly obvious aspect of international marketing, and not a striking observation, yet an important one. Today I noticed a sign in a Sydney foodcourt where the translation from chinese to english wouldn't drive the sales of "Spicy Pork Bowel in Szechaun Style' or "Cellophane" with Ground Pork. What the?

Customer service today

If today is any indication I'll have plenty to blog about this year. I've nominated my interest area as sales and marketing. Today I went shopping and I found many noteworthy items to discuss. Thinking of sales, I have always said how closely connected sales is to customer service. As a customer, I don't want to be sold to. I want to be serviced. When customer service expectations are not met then sales are lost.

Every interaction with a customer is an opportunity to build a companies brand identity. The value of a strong brand is measured in sales revenue. The retail experience, the customer facing aspect, is perhaps more important than above the line and below the line advertising in building and positioning a brand and therefore generating sales. Or put that another way, when the customer experience is bad, no amount of spending on advertising or PR will work to turn around a customers negative perceptions. Their business is lost.

Happy new year

Oh, OK it's 2009 already. As I look back on 2008 I realise that I didn't write very many blogs. This is partly because I've been so busy with actual work. In 2009 I will try to be less busy (good luck to me) and write some more.

I'll keep uploading photographs of clothing in unusual contexts but I'll also start blogging about media sales and marketing which is where I ply my skills during the day. There is a lot of talk, especially in media & advertising circles, about digital media and how it is usurping traditional print media. I have some thoughts on this, and where the publishing media are heading, so I'll share them here during the year. Basically though, the argument goes that audiences and advertising revenues are migrating organically from print to digital. I'll claim that, while this is true, another important consideration is the behavioural change from mass media to niche media. This is an important strategic point which has been largely over-looked by media companies themselves. There is also a strain of thought that says audiences are choosing to move from print to digital media because digital media is more environmentally friendly. Given that sustainable forestry practices now exist, and the increasing amounts of electricity needed to power the world's PC's, much of which is generated by burning fossil fuels, this is a claim that needs further investigation. So plenty to talk about.