Unstable Tableware Helps Find Balance for Norwegian Seafood Council with Innovative Campaign

Sometimes, things have to be a little out of whack to help you find some balance, and today Platinum and UltraSuperNew launch ‘Baransu Sara’, (‘Balance Plate’ in Japanese), for the Norwegian Seafood Council, in a light-hearted PR campaign to help their customers find some balanced rest in this unsettling world.

A consumer survey that the Norwegian Seafood Council conducted in September showed that over 75% of consumers are not focused on their food, a key reason being that they are constantly spending time on their phones, TV, or other digital distractions. The ‘Baransu Sara’ was specially designed with the intent to make a clean break from it all, to disconnect from the news, the tweets, the constant scrolling and focus solely on enjoying a tasty and nutritious Norwegian mackerel dish. The requisite? You'll have to let go of your phone while you eat as the phone holds the plate up enabling the fishy feast to go ahead.

It’s a little-known fact that approximately 70% of salted mackerel available in the Japanese market has Norwegian origin. Platinum and UltraSuperNew Tokyo have created a series of shareable content for the Norwegian Seafood Council to remind the Japanese market of the versatile benefits of fresh mackerel fished in their waters.

A limited number of the plates have been made which the public can win via a lottery style competition entered online.

Hiroyuki Matsudo, PR director at Platinum, said: "How can we get more people to focus on delicious Norwegian mackerel dishes? As the pandemic has blended and blurred our days for many of us, we took a survey to find out how people are separating their work and personal lives and found that one in three Japanese consumers feel stressed about calls, texts and notifications that disturb their mealtime. So our solution was to create a dish that won’t allow you to use your phone. But, with or without the Balance Plate, we hope you take this opportunity to place your phone down while you eat and enjoy a digital free meal for a change."

Associate creative director at UltraSuperNew, Andrés Aguilar, added: "In a year that feels like five bad ones stitched together, coming up with a quirky object that encourages people to disconnect for a while and simply eat deliciously was the project we needed. Right after I finish writing this, this phone is going straight under my Balance Plate, lest I open Twitter, and my mackerel gets cold."