At the start of this year the Norwegian Seafood Export Council (NSEC) appointed Ketchum Beijing and Ketchum Hong Kong for ongoing consumer PR support for the King of Fish, Norwegian salmon. Both teams have been very active already with some very diverse programs.

This year, Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day fell on the same day. To help consumers in Mainland China celebrate this fortuitous concurrence of festivals, Ketchum conceived and launched a year-long “I Love Salmon” campaign for NSEC. Taking advantage of another fortuitous fact, that “I Love Salmon” in Chinese sounds similar to “I Kiss You Three Times,” Chinese netizens were invited to send virtual New Year and Valentine’s kisses to their loved ones through a special “Fish of Love” page on renren.com, China’s largest online social networking site.

In the space of a month, over 40,000 netizens enthusiastically joined the love festival and sent kisses and greetings to their relatives and friends. Over 30 consumers won prizes during the campaign, including a trip to Shanghai and entrance tickets to the upcoming 2010 Shanghai World Expo as well as Norwegian salmon cookbooks and other giveaways from NSEC.

In addition, NSEC also established a public page for Norwegian salmon on renren.com. The page is used to spread the word about the numerous health and beauty benefits of Norwegian salmon, with its high Omega-3 content and rich nutritional profile and to stimulate discussion about how to prepare and eat Norwegian salmon. To date, nearly 5,000 users have “friended” Norwegian salmon.

In another NSEC program five senior reporters traveled to Norway, in what every single one of them described as “an experience of a lifetime,” to visit NSEC and see first hand why Norway produces the best farmed salmon in the world.

Actually they probably got a bit more than they bargained for as one of the highlights of the packed program of activities was a night-time dog-sledding expedition through dark Arctic forests hosted by NSEC in search of the elusive Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights.

After arriving in Tromso, the home of the NSEC, the journalists from Modern Weekly, Sanlian Life Weekly, Betty’s Kitchen, Psychologies, and Hers were given an in-depth introduction to Norway’s aquaculture industries and the hugely important role that salmon has played in Norwegian lifestyle and economy for centuries.

But nothing beats seeing a salmon farm to bring home the message about how amazing Norwegian salmon are. So the reporters were taken to a large aquaculture farm located in the picturesque Lyngen Fjord.

At the farm, the reporters saw for themselves the cold, clean waters where Norwegian salmon flourish, and they witnessed the high-tech farming processes used by the fishermen to ensure the highest standards of food safety and environmental sustainability.

To round the trip off, the media were treated to a meal cooked by one of the leading Norwegian chefs who will be in residence at the Norway pavilion restaurant during the upcoming Expo.

Meanwhile, in Hong Kong the Ketchum team arranged a NSEC photo call to present 99 pieces of Norwegian salmon rose sushi to celeb-model Elizabete Kwong as a Valentine’s Day gift. As a symbol of enduring love that all ladies are longing for, the 99 individual salmon flowers positioned Norwegian salmon as the “Fish of Love” for the most romantic day of the year.