Summer 2021 update on Love Seafood consumer campaigns

Our Head of Marketing shares details of Love Seafood consumer campaigns planned for the next year.

As we move into the second year of Love Seafood, I’m really excited to share details of the campaigns we’re planning to help get UK consumers excited about seafood.

Love Seafood is a 20-year initiative to encourage people to want to eat more fish and shellfish in the long run. Our campaigns feature many different species and product types as we seek to change consumer perceptions and attitudes towards seafood in general. We’re also looking to target specific audience segments with different campaigns.

Here’s a quick overview of our activity calendar for the 2021/22 year.

Activity already delivered – Scampi campaign

We’ve just finished our first campaign, which focused on scampi. In May and June we were ‘going for gold’, by showcasing how tasty and delicious scampi can be to our ‘stretched families’ audience.

As part of the campaign we:

Worked with families across the country who showed us how to cook a fun and easy scampi dinner with their own little scamps.
Signed up audience-specific influencers to help us spread the message and engage families across social media.
Partnered with fish and chip shops across the country to give away free portions of scampi and chips to get everyone enjoying this fantastic dish.

social media graphics featuring scampi dippers, a scampi burger and scampi in an oven dish — Social media graphics used in the scampi campaign

Summer activity focusing on foodservice

As we move further into the season, our ‘Summer of feel good food’ will turn to focus on foodservice. First up, we’re celebrating the nation’s favourite takeaway with a fish and chips campaign in July and August. This activity will target our ‘stretched families’ audience.

The fish and chips campaign will include:

Outdoor advertising – we’re promoting fish and chips on telephone kiosks in Belfast, Bristol, Glasgow and Liverpool. We’ll also supply campaign details and promotional assets to fish and chips businesses in these cities.
An experiential element – we’re working with businesses on a promotion to give away fish and chips to consumers in Fife, Lancashire and Tyne and Wear.
Partnerships with social media influencers across Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Media relations – including pitching features to national and regional media.
Digital activity, with a fish and chips takeover on the Love Seafood website, e-alerts and both paid and organic activity on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Following this, we’ll continue to support out of home consumption by promoting more seafood in foodservice in August and September. We know foodservice and hospitality is still suffering due to the impact of Covid-19. As restrictions ease there’s a desire to spend time with family and friends, celebrating all the special occasions we’ve missed over the last 15 months. We want to support the industry and encourage people to choose seafood when they’re eating out of home.

We’ll highlight various species of fish which are a common choice of, and easily accessible to, our target audiences. Our proposition will be built around encouraging people to choose seafood when they’re eating out at restaurants, takeaways or food shacks. For this campaign we’re going to be targeting consumers across two audience segments – ‘stretched families’ and ‘starting out’.

Photo of a portion of fish and chips in a takeaway box — Our next Love Seafood campaign will focus on fish and chips

Supporting in-home consumption in autumn and winter

In September and October our campaign activity will focus on oil-rich species of ambient or tinned seafood. This will be a recipe-focused campaign which aligns with retailers and has a big role for our Seafood Champions. Our ‘starting out’ audience will be the target for this campaign.

We’re also be looking at sustainability in late autumn. We’re planning some activity on this to link in with the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 26) taking place in Glasgow.

In November and December we’re switching back to focus on ‘mid-market families’ as we celebrate seafood for the festive season. Our unashamedly Christmas campaign will hero online seafood and seafood boxes. We’ll also pick up on the popularity of shellfish at this time of year.

Finally, we’re bringing in the new year with on positive and healthy note. Our campaign for January and February 2022 will focus on ‘new year, new you’. The campaign will offer another opportunity to focus on recipes and the healthier side of seafood as a protein. It will target both ‘starting out’ and ‘stretched families’.

That’s our plan. Please make a note of the campaign periods so you can join in where there are opportunities that work for you and your business.

Our 2021/22 activity calendar has been developed in partnership with industry stakeholders and particularly our Love Seafood Group. Alongside these campaigns we’ll keep delivering our ‘always on’ drumbeat of activity to promote seafood to consumers across the UK. We’ll also be providing more tools for seafood businesses to use in local marketing activity.

Further information

Please note, as from 11 April 2022, the Love Seafood initiative and all associated activity has come to an end. Thank you for your support and for being a part of the journey to ‘bring on better living’.