Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
professional marketers or mass media advertising. Programme marketing has been
a combination of the methods of harnessing opinion leaders as described above,
using their profiles to get coverage, and 'grassroots' contact with consumers and
Forest and Bird members.
The guide development and promotion were funded by Forest and Bird, except
that reprints requested by some organisations were funded by those groups. The
government has not provided any funding or other support.
The launch of the 'Blue Zealand' campaign, in the political heart of the New
Zealand capital Wellington, was followed by 24 public meetings organised in 2004
by Forest and Bird branches throughout New Zealand to promote the campaign and
create public awareness. Around 100 000 copies of the Best Fish Guide wallet card
were produced. There was a mail-out for Forest and Bird members and Greenpeace
New Zealand members. The guide was circulated to like-minded organisations
internationally. Local media were given the opportunity to cover the issues and a
range of other events were used to promote public awareness. Some recreational
fishing groups promoted the programme to their members. The New Zealand fishing
industry has been either hostile or has maintained a studied silence.
18.7
Effectiveness in the marketplace
The programme has been underway for less than 3 years at the time of writing,
so information on effectiveness in the marketplace is not available. Methods for
assessing success in the market place would range from sophisticated multivariate
analyses beyond the capacity of the Forest and Bird to focus groups and other sur-
vey methods to examine public awareness, surveys of food industry professionals'
awareness and market purchase monitoring. Determining the effectiveness of the
guide is also complicated by effects of the diminishing supply of some species,
such as orange roughy or hoki.
The launch of the programme was followed up with further public awareness
activity including commentary on the closures of fish factories as fish stocks and
catch limits were reduced. General media activity was undertaken to prompt and
remind consumers and citizens of the issues.
The success measures to determine the effectiveness of the guide would include
respondent awareness in focus groups before and after exposure to the information,
follow-up surveys, purchase pattern shifts assessed by random sample surveys of
purchasing behaviour, restaurant menu analysis, product sales that demonstrate
changed purchases and change in government decisions.
The ultimate test of the success of the programme is the recovery of the fisheries,
but this is a situation with many variables. There is essentially a race to reduce
demand and to pressure fishing companies to reduce both supply and the impacts
of fishing before the attrition of the stocks and the natural environmental capi-
tal reaches such a level that demand reduction becomes irrelevant in the face of
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