Phillips Foods, Inc. - Introducing King Crab to the Trade

By 2006, Phillips Food Inc. had grown into one of the largest seafood businesses in the United States and was the number one U.S. brand for crab meat. The company comprised a restaurant division, a foodservice products division that sold to restaurants, and a retail products division that sold to grocery stores. In August, 2006, Phillips’ product manager was responsible for defining the communication strategy decisions required to launch its new product: first-to-market pasteurized king crab. The product manager had already spent half of his advertising budget promoting the product to buyers in the foodservice and restaurant channels. He had to decide how to spend the remaining portion of his budget to best reach seafood buyers in the consumer retail channel. He had an opportunity to showcase the product at an upcoming major industry food show; however, he had already planned to spend his budget on advertising in a trade publication for the retail grocery channel. He had to examine the relative merits of each option and present an overall recommendation on how to best launch and sell the product. Qualitative, quantitative and financial aspects were to be considered; as well, the product manager had to determine the costs, returns and qualitative benefits that each option provided.