An analysis of effective marketing strategies for Miyagi shelled oyster after the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011

We aimed to investigate effective marketing strategies for shelled oyster in the Tokyo markets, subsequent to the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake. Because raw oysters from Miyagi area had accounted for around 70% of the GMS sales in metropolitan area until the day before the Great East Japan Earthquake, but now other prefectures such as Hiroshima, Okayama and Hyogo have been growing market share in GMS sales instead of Miyagi. Latent class models was applied to suggest effective marketing strategies to promote Tokyo markets. The results showed that Tokyo consumers may be categorized as "contents and raw lovers" who value raw oysters and their contents (57%), and as "casual consumers" who consume fewer oysters but value raw oysters (17%). Therefore, promotion can be focused on raw oysters and on increasing the size of contents for the "contents and raw lovers" and "casual consumers.".