Categorie:

Social campaigns

Title of campaign:

Fish Does Good

short common description of the campaign::

Studies showed that Estonians consume less fish products compared to other

maritime countries. While Finnish people eat 33kg of fish per person in a year,

then in Estonia the number was only 17kg. Estonians also suffer more cardio

vascular diseases. As there are vital minerals and omega3 oils in seafood, it should

be eaten more often. To increase consumption of fish products Estonian

Association of Fishery started a social campaign Fish does good! The integrated

campaign was co-financed by government and EU. The opportunity was seen, that

if people are better aware that fish products are healthy and given new cooking

ideas, they would eat more fish. Biggest challenge was to reach the whole society,

which was achieved with great success. The highlight of campaign was a

competition to select Estonian national fish. This creative approach made fish

spontaneous topic not only in local media, but the project reached international

news, including front page of Wall Street Journal and NYT.

research work done during the campaign:

While planning the campaign, a recent research about Estonians’ fish consumption

habits was deeply studied. It appeared that people didn’t like to eat fish, as cooking

it was considered too complicated, messy, smelly and time-consuming. People

knew how to cook only few kinds of fish. Fish was considered expensive, as

compared to meat. It was also studied who were decision makers and influencers

in families while compiling the menu. Research proved that special attention

should be paid to kids, as people take their childhood eating habits with them to

their adult lives. Based on the research, specific objectives and target groups were

identified.

Main communication objectives were:

raising awareness about fish as healthy food

teaching people to cook fish in different ways

introducing different kinds of fish

Target audience was whole society, but specific actions were planned for:

Women, as they usually make the shopping list

Children, as they can strongly influence mothers’ decisions

Three groups of opinion leaders were involved:

Health specialists - fish as healthy food

Chefs - fish as delicious and easy-to-make food

Celebrities - how they cook fish

Main PR messages were:

Fish is healthy, keeps your heart in order

It is easy to cook fish

There is a variety of fish available, experiment more to find something

your family likes

Fish is relatively cheap - though per kg fish is more expensive than meat

its nutrition value is much higher.

strategy:

The following row of integrated communication activities were selected.

Campaign started with Opening Conference, where messages about fish as healthy

food were elaborated by health specialists. Sociologist introduced results of

survey, why Estonians don’t like eating fish. Minister of Agriculture announced

national fish competition. During conference, people spontaneously started to vote

in Internet for national fish!

Estonian National Fish competition aimed to make people think about variety of

local fish, and get all social groups involved. Competition was in several phases.

During first months people could vote for any fish. After some months 5 finalists

were selected, which made the headlines again. During next months people voted

among finalists. 50000 votes were collected in this phase. The winner was

announced on Independence Day.

Fish Gala dinner ("Kala Gala") was held in the evening of opening conference.

Relevant decision makers and celebrities attended; objective was to get opinion

leaders involved since the beginning. Rooms’ decorations, entertainment and food

were all related to seafood.

Website (www.kalateebhead.ee) was created as campaign’s central communication

site, containing facts and articles about fish as healthy food, recipes of fish dishes,

information about events, competitions, photo galleries, voting system.

In summer 2007 fish tent events took place. Tents with campaign symbolic were

spectacular guests of all festivals. Special program was developed, including

checker on huge board played with fish cans, seafood cooking presentations by top

chefs, fish drawing and fishermen stories competitions. In total 8 festivals were

attended, longest of them lasting 5 days.

Public recipe competition’s goal was to get amateur cooks come along, and share

their experience about cooking fish. 2 categories were announced - National Fish

and Other. Top chefs chose finalists, who bravely prepared their recipes in front of

audience in fish tent during biggest festival.

Variety of media coverage was initiated - health and nutrition related articles,

celebrities cooking fish, description of campaign events etc. National fish

competition was covered constantly.

Success of campaign was measured by media coverage, and raise of public

awareness about fish as healthy food. The effect was measured by number of

people coming along- visiting website, voting, participating recipe competition etc.

The impact of campaign was seen in increase of fish products consumption.

Fish competition became the highlight of campaign. It might seem at first, that this

had not much to do with eating habits, but PR strategy turned out to be very smart.

As the target group was whole society, this simple topic that was understandable to

all social groups, made people to become aware of the campaign and its messages.

This is perfect example to prove how a creative PR idea can guarantee huge public

attention while costs stay low.

Results of the campaign and evaluation::

Campaign got wide media coverage. Health related articles were initiated with

health specialist, magazines and TV cooking shows started to introduce fish dishes

spontaneously.

Competition topic reached all social groups. Discussion about favorite fish became

hot issue on routine social gatherings, leading conversation to fish eating habits.

Thanks to wide public response Baltic Herring was officially named National Fish.

It is a symbol in new encyclopedia.

Highlights:

Topic was many times in TV news and shows (humorous and serious), cartoons,

crosswords, poems with many comments and articles. Baltic Herring was Person

of the week in major weekly; usually important people are selected for that

column.

Baltic Herring as winner was announced before Independence Day and served at

Presidents’ gala

Besides campaign website, many online-papers set up voting systems and

announced their readers’ favorites.

Journalists found an exotic fish that colors copy the Estonian flag.

Competition became a topic at Parliament meetings.

Schools came along - sent their voting results. Kids TV-show did national fish

drawing competition.

Fish competition reached international news. It was covered on WSJ front page,

NYT, France Presse, BBC

During 1-year fish consumption increased 4kg/person that was more than planned.

Campaign was named best Estonian PR project in 2007 and was selected finalist in

IPRA Golden World Awards competition.