Communication is a challenge for Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative

First published in Landings, July, 2014.

The Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative (MLMC) is charged with improving recognition and demand for Maine lobster in the national and international markets in order to ultimately raise the price paid to lobstermen. Since its inception in October, 2013, the MLMC board has taken a crash course in the field of marketing and promotion, explained Frank Gotwals, a Stonington lobsterman and MLMC chair. “What is marketing?” he asked rhetorically. “The board needed to know what it is for in order to do its work.”

Although it sounds a bit counter-intuitive, marketing lobster is not the same as selling lobster. Marketing professionals promote the product — in this case, lobster — in the mind of the public, specifically targeting those whose jobs involve delivering the item to consumers. Lobstermen often think of lobster being sold at local seafood markets and grocery stores, but more than 80% of seafood is consumed in restaurants and other food service outlets. “That’s why our new program with the Culinary Institute of America is so important,” Gotwals said.

The MLMC has begun a three-year promotional partnership with the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) to get up-and-coming chefs excited about cooking with Maine lobster. The CIA is a renowned culinary college, which trains chefs at campuses in California, New York, Texas and Singapore. The campaign will develop digital marketing content for students and professional chefs. The CIA will develop lobster recipes and produce tutorial videos on how to prepare and serve lobster. It will offer a full online course on cooking with lobster including how to handle and prepare lobster, wines to serve with specific dishes, and background on Maine’s lobster fishery.

Gotwals traveled to California this spring to meet with major restaurant and hotel food buyers and chefs at a Greystone Flavor Summit hosted by the CIA. “I talked to the people who are important for us to reach and market Maine lobster to,” he said. In addition, in June Gotwals hosted a CIA film crew on his fishing boat who filmed lobstermen at work and their fishing communities for the online course which is scheduled to be launched this September.

But there is another audience for the MLMC’s marketing efforts: the Maine industry itself. The MLMC is funded through a fee levied on licenses not only of lobstermen but of seafood buyers and processors as well. As the MLMC board members have come to realize, marketing a live animal to the public is not as simple as it may seem. It takes money and it takes time.

“I understand the skepticism fishermen have about marketing and its potential benefit to them. I agreed to serve on the board in part because I believe there is unrealized value in our product,” Gotwals said. “We have a compelling story about our lobstering communities and the sustainable fishery we’ve worked to build. The MLMC has to gradually get the industry interested in marketing in such a way that they realize what marketing can do for them. It won’t happen overnight.” The Collaborative’s job is to educate buyers, distributors and the public about all of the great attributes of Maine lobster. Gaining recognition for a high-quality product will build demand. Then it is up to individual businesses to actually sell Maine lobster.

Lobsterman Peter Miller of Tenants Harbor sits on the board and is part of its communications committee. He knows that getting a message out to lobstermen on any topic is an uphill battle. “We are letting people know what we are doing via email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all those things,” he said. “We might have a press release in the Bangor Daily News but no one seems to read it.” He also cautions lobstermen and processors not to think that in this first year of operation the MLMC will be making a big splash. “We are in the process of building a foundation so you are not going to see a whole lot of change immediately, like a major price increase. You have to take the long view. We want to build demand for years to come, not just make a house of cards.”

There’s a lot for the MLMC to work with, Gotwals added. “We already have a brand. Everyone recognizes the name ‘Maine.’ We have to support that,” he said. The analysis conducted by Future Shift in 2013 indicated that the public associates the name “Maine” with unpolluted water and high-quality seafood. The trick now is to make those who use lobster, such as major chefs and restaurant chains, request Maine lobster by name, rather than simply “lobster.”

The investment in the MLMC ($750,000 in 2014; $1.5 million in 2015; $2.26 million in 2016 and 2017) is sizable. However, Gotwals argues, those figures, when contrasted with the number of pounds that are expected to be landed over those years, are modest. “Think of it this way: when you make an investment in a new boat, you don’t expect to get all that money back in one year. It’s a long-term investment.”

The MLMC suffered a setback in May when the Louisiana man selected to become the new organization’s executive director declined the position due to personal reasons.. The board immediately set about reinstituting the search; interim director Marianne Lacroix said that a new director should in place by August.