'Traditional' companies can find their place in the digital landscape by embracing their heritage and bringing it online. Here's how Hai Sia brought their seafood business online.

When you think about digital marketing and becoming a minor YouTube sensation, a seafood supplier at Singapore’s Jurong fishery port would probably not be what you would expect. 

Hai Sia Seafood (teochew dialect for 'the sound of the sea') is a 40-year-old seafood wholesaler at the Jurong Central Fish Market. Up until recently the business was a very traditional affair with most customer dealings being face-to-face. It only had a simple web presence in the form of a 2 page website.

Then Ang Junting joined his family's business to help his father.

“One of the things I've been trying to do is to modernise and professionalise the business,” he said. “To transform it from a very traditional type of business into something where we keep the core, of doing something very honest and down to earth, but with the elements of a modern-day business.”

In November 2015, they revamped their website to look as fresh as you might expect from a startup, and even more radically, they released a video expressing the artisanal side of their work that has now had more than 200,000 views on YouTube.

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