This September, the nation will celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of the nation’s most-loved, iconic food icons – Captain Birds Eye – who, having made his debut in 1967, has become one of the longest-running brand personalities since food advertising began.
To mark the milestone, Birds Eye has invested £2.2m in an integrated campaign across PR, digital, TV, on-pack and retailer activation. To launch the campaign, Birds Eye unveiled a seven-foot golden statue of the sea-faring explorer at Cutty Sark Gardens in Greenwich on Thursday 31st August.
Standing at over 7ft tall and 11 stone in weight, the statue captures the lovable icon’s wink and sees him proudly holding aloft Birds Eye’s most iconic product, a fish finger. Created by design and construction specialists, Helix Design, the statue is made from a mixture of plaster, polystyrene and Jesmonite, and took 180 hours to create in preparation of the Golden Jubilee. Following the unveiling, the statue will then be transported to Birds Eye’s factory in Lowestoft.
To further support the campaign, a limited-edition on-pack promotion will feature on 16 of Birds Eye’s most popular products, including fish fingers, breaded and battered fish. In-store from September 4th to November 26th, participating packs will give shoppers the chance to win one of over 6,000 commemorative Captain Birds Eye soft toys every ten minutes by visiting www.winacaptain.co.uk and entering a code found on-pack.
Running across TV, VOD, digital and social, the campaign will also be supported through advertising from September. Showcasing the Captain sharing a platter of battered cod fillets or Omega 3 fish fingers with his crew, the TVC will finish with a five-second end-frame to drive awareness of the on-pack promotion and Golden Jubilee.
Steve Challouma, UK Marketing Director at Birds Eye, said: “After 50 years of service, it’s great to see that Captain Birds Eye is still the nation’s most iconic food character. He is a huge part of the brand’s heritage and there’s no better way to commemorate this momentous anniversary than with a golden statue of the seafarer himself and an integrated marketing campaign.”
Further getting consumers involved, a Captain Birds Eye Snapchat lens has been created to transform users into the Captain himself, complete with a white bushy beard and naval outfit. Users can also try it with a friend and become a fish finger or Captain Birds Eye.
FACTS ABOUT BIRDS EYE
- Clarence Birdseye founded Birdseye Seafoods Inc. in 1922, and is considered to be one of the founding fathers of the frozen food industry
- It was in -40°C weather that Clarence discovered that the fish he caught froze almost instantly, and, when thawed, tasted fresh
- It was this knowledge that led to Clarence inventing the fast freezing process, a method which is still used today in order to preserve the natural quality of our food
- By the time Clarence died on 7th October 1956 in New York City, he held roughly 300 patents and frozen food had become a billion-dollar industry
- It was Birds Eye that invented the fish finger, launched on 26th September 1955
- To this day, the company employs specialists to judge the colour of the perfect crumb for a fish finger!
- Birds Eye has a pea tasting panel, that through the harvest season taste thousands and thousands of peas, comparing them to the top secret ‘pea scale’
- The company sells 19,000 tonnes of fish fingers a year, 21,000 tonnes of garden peas a year and 28,000 tonnes of peas in total (including petits pois)
- Birds Eye launched its first TV ad in 1967, featuring Captain Birds Eye
- Birds Eye’s pea advert was the first colour TV advert in 1969
- Birds Eye launched the first ever frozen beef burger in 1950
- The company sources 100% of its beef from UK and Irish farms
- Birds Eye has been printing food facts on its products since 1979
- All artificial colours were removed from its frozen food in 1985
- Birds Eye employs around 800 people in the UK, and takes on interns with the potential to progress to a full-time role
- A poll in 1993 named Captain Birds Eye the world's most recognised captain after Captain Cook
