StarKist, the over 100-year-old marketer of canned tuna, has a lot going for it: broad name recognition, a familiar brand character in Charlie the Tuna and the proposition of offering a low-calorie, high-protein food at a time when consumers seem to be looking for that combination.
On the other hand, the brand faces a number of challenges. As an independent company, StarKist doesn’t have the media dollars of the big conglomerates, while every brand from breakfast cereals to indulgent desserts is making a play in the protein space.
“At the end of the day, StarKist is a big consumer brand that's very, very well known, but we're not …this massive, massive company, right?” said Michael Merritt, vice president and head of marketing and innovation at StarKist. “We have limited resources, and we want to make sure we're [working] as efficiently as we can.”
When it came time to select the partners that could push the brand forward in many areas all at once, StarKist eschewed enlisting several agencies to handle different parts of its marketing initiatives and instead consolidated its account with one agency, Tombras.
The agency-of-record model isn’t what the company originally intended when it began its search, Merritt said, but as StarKist explored Tombras’ capabilities, “it made a ton of sense to integrate it all.” StarKist formally announced the agency partnership in July and Tombras is helping the brand develop an integrated campaign for the fall that positions its tuna products as a convenient, ready-to-eat protein option. The effort, which will run across connected TV, online video, social and digital channels, will feature a heavy dose of Charlie, who was described as one of “advertising's most powerful brand icons” in the release.
“We're trying to figure out the most efficient way to target people, and what are the growth opportunities,” Merritt said. “That means messaging and creative, but it also means, ‘What are the right channels?’... That all really needs to be integrated and go hand-in-hand.”
Enabling agility
Tombras has a track record of helping well-known challenger brands like Sweethearts, MoonPie and Steak-Umms enter the cultural conversation. The agency’s remit for StarKist spans brand strategy, creative development, media planning and buying, organic social and community management, measurement and analytics and website and SEO assessments. For the agency’s president, Dooley Tombras, StarKist’s decision to consolidate wasn’t a surprise.
“It’s a trend we’re seeing more and more with clients,” said Tombras. “The pendulum is swinging back for a lot of these mid-cap national brands, where they intuitively see the benefits of integration.”
Among the capabilities Tombras offers is the agility to respond quickly to cultural moments, like using Congressional hearings on “unexplained aerial phenomena” as a platform for MoonPie to be the first brand to make a pitch to aliens.
“That generated over a billion earned media impressions for MoonPie,” Tombras said. “That’s helped MoonPie punch above its weight and use earned and shared media to [capitalize on] culture to grow their sales.”
That agility requires operational efficiencies that are best served through a single-agency model, he added. Capitalizing on the conversation requires making split-second decisions that require execution from both the messaging and media sides of the equation. There’s no time to convene five agencies to get aligned, Tombras argued.
“The reason that a lot of times brands can't react to culture is they’re debating what the right thing to do is,” Tombras said. “When you've got the creative and the social together, and you are the brand agency, you know what the brand strategy is. You’re in lockstep on that with your client partner, and then when something happens, it's easier to react.”
An integrated model also fosters accountability, according to Tombras.
“When you split up the creative and the media, if the results aren't there, the creative agency can blame the media plan, and the media agency can blame the creative,” he said. “When you integrate, and the creative and media are working together, there's nowhere to hide.”
Modernizing Charlie
For StarKist, all of those elements are important as the brand looks to reintroduce its strongest asset, Charlie the Tuna, to a new generation of consumers. While Merritt and Tombras wouldn’t divulge details on the strategy, it’s likely Charlie will have a voice through social media as much as in traditional advertising.
“We want to make sure we’re utilizing him in the right way,” Merritt said. “I think the integrated partnership helps us understand how he’s going to be better used in these channels.”
Some possibilities could involve Charlie reacting to the culture or commenting on other brands’ social media and “flooding the zone” to capitalize on cultural moments, all with an eye toward positioning StarKist as a lean, natural protein to a new cohort of consumers, Tombras said.
“It’s much easier to win in an authentic way with Gen Z when they're discovering the brand through earned and shared media versus seeing it paid,” he said.
Executing on that strategy, ultimately, is why Merritt feels good about appointing Tombras StarKist’s agency of record as the brand looks to make another splash in a crowded and noisy marketing space.
“I’m really confident we are going to [succeed] because we have the brand, we have the product and we’re positioned very well,” he said. “And now, we have the partner that’s going to take us to the next level.”
