Twitter storm at sea

This was an interesting experiment we tried recently on enlivening pre-recorded shows – in this case by calling out for a mass action over an ad break focused on three UK supermarkets which are unclear about the sourcing of some of their seafood (though no horse flesh involved …I think) and then presenting back the results straight after the break including an on-screen graphic featuring the number of tweets sent. In the words of the Twitter folk: “A great result around the show last night. We count circa 42K+ in the last 24 hours and a peak of 22K+ at the call to action – which is an equivalent hashtag spike to those Xfactor enjoys around its biggest moments! This kind of audience activation and live polling with Twitter is brilliant.”
The following extract is courtesy of Broadcast…

Big Fish Fight hooks 20,000 tweets

5 March, 2013 | By Alex Farber

Hugh’s Fish Fight saw a massive surge in Twitter activity – to over 2,200 messages per minute – after presenter Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall urged viewers to message the UK’s biggest supermarkets.

Hugh’s Big Fish Fight (C4) 9pm-10pm
Total tweets: 22,151
Peak tweets per minute: 2,289

Fearnley-Whittingstall’s call to action over sustainable fishing saw over 10,000 viewers flock to Twitter over the course of the 60-minute show, according to data from SecondSync.

The show was watched by an audience of 1.1m (5.3%) according to overnight data supplied by Attentional – a conversion rate of around 1%.

The viewer engagement spiked at just after 9.30pm ahead of an ad break as Fearnley-Whittingstall encouraged viewers to tweet the supermarkets’ official accounts after they refused to be interviewed on the show.

The figures represented a massive uplift on the 312 tweets per minute the show averaged across the 60 minutes.

It also dwarfed the total tweet volume of 3,300 and 1,500 generated by the first two episodes in the series – when no call-to-action occurred.

C4’s multiplatform commissioning editor of factual Adam Gee said: “Fish Fight represents the sweet spot of multiplatform – the TV prompts understandable anger and the digital means now you can do something about it.”

The social media campaign was managed by digital agency Keo Digital and audience participation experts Telescope Inc.

Venceremos

From The Independent today…

France and Spain back down on fish discards after internet campaign

MARTIN HICKMAN    MONDAY 19 MARCH 2012

France and Spain today backed down over a plan to carry on throwing dead fish overboard after an internet campaign organised by a television chef.

Prior to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s social networking campaign, the two countries had been hoping to persuade fellow fisheries ministers to sign a declaration opposing a ban on discards, when trawlers exceeding their allowable catch throw back fish into the sea dead.

More than 130,000 Twitter and Facebook messages were sent to ministers urging them to oppose the draft declaration and France and Spain did not insist on a vote. Britain’s fisheries minister Richard Benyon went into the meeting saying he would oppose France and Spain. The EU fisheries commissioner Maria Damanaki now looks likely to phase out discards over four years, by reforming the Common Fisheries Policy in a way that ultimately kills fewer fish.

Last night Fearnley-Whittingstall told supporters: “I’m coming back on the Eurostar and it’s been a satisfying day. Discard disaster has been averted as the French, Spanish, Portguese and Belgian revolution just didn’t happen. Maria Damanaki led from the front and seems to be building consensus among the ministers. Everyone agreed that the amazing Twitter and Facebook activity over the weekend made a real difference.”

***

136,000 tweets were published between Saturday and when the EU Fisheries Ministers gathered in Brussels on Monday morning, addressed directly to each Minister in his/her own language.

To top off a moment of victory, this evening Hugh’s Fish Fight won the RTS Award for Best Popular Factual Programme, the citation [below] highlighting the importance of the multiplatform element. Hugh was delighted and is raring to move on with the follow-up series this year which will cover events like yesterday in Brussels.

“An interesting, watchable and accessible series of clever and effortless campaigning. The presenter is an amazing advocate, demonstrates admirable tenacity and gains unbelievable access. The series is also distinctive in terms of online innovation and activity.”

This is the second time this year a resolutely TV-centric awards has picked up on the multiplatform dimension of Fishfight, indicating the increasingly mainstream character of Multiplatform. Last month Fishfight won the Best Popular Factual Programme category of the Broadcast Awards, run by the industry’s tradepaper. The citation included:

“A passionate, uncompromising programme that made a potentially dull subject fascinating – and with superb use of multiplatform.”

Tipping the hat to Hugh’s previous campaign, Chicken Out, I conclude with a traditional little joke: Why did the Belgian chicken cross the road?

(Because there’s fuck all else to do in Brussels.) Not like the London chicken then.

{Article reproduced courtesy of The Independent.}

4 highlights of work this year

As the debt burden of time edges towards the apocalyptic default of destiny, it’s comforting to sit here by the fire with my Sobranie and peat single malt and reflect on the year that was for me at work. It was a fine year, nay a vintage one, and the 4 things that gave me most satisfaction were:

January: The Big Fish Fight with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall – the year started by taking online campaigning around TV up a gear

May: Live from the Clinic including My HealthChecker – using Embarrassing Bodies as a platform to experiment with Skype on live TV and data gathering, saving the NHS over 400 grand in the process

July: The Sexperience 1000 – given how cliched data visualisation has already become, an attempt to liven it up

December: The Great British Property Scandal with George Clarke – finished the year as I began with some full-on campaigning

So I’ll sit on here, puff away, muse idly on the last twelve months, and watch the counter on The Great British Property Scandal tick over towards that 100,000…

 

Interactive media cuts crime

Two years is a long time in interactive media – time enough for this commission of mine, Landshare, from Keo and Mint Digital to show its true value as highlighted in the Telegraph:

Crime

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s allotment halves anti-social behaviour

Hugh Fearnley-Whittinghstall, the River Cottage chef, has halved anti-social behaviour on a housing estate with an allotment scheme.

7:00AM BST 11 Aug 2011

The television chef launched the Landshare initiative, encouraging communities to plant food on unused plots.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

The scheme’s first project in Leigh, Wigan, has cut anti-social behaviour by 51 per cent, local police said.

“This has been a wonderful project that gives children something positive, healthy and educational to do,” said PCSO Wendy Walters. “The allotment has undoubtedly contributed to a staggering 51 per cent reduction in antisocial behaviour on the estate in the last year.”

“The estate has seen a great improvement in antisocial behaviour since the allotment started,” said one resident. “The site gives children somewhere to go and something to do.”

The Landshare scheme, backed by Channel 4, matches people in need of land and those wanting to help with growing with people offering unused plots. It also offers advice to novice gardeners. It has been used by more than 55,000 people since its launch by Fearnley-Whittingstall in 2009.

{Reproduced courtesy of The Telegraph}

NFL Map

One of my sons made this map the other day (with Photoshop and patience) and said I should put it on my blog as ‘it would help get extra visitors’ since there are hardly any maps of the NFL teams on the web and the few that are to be found are not much good. Having attended an interesting session at Mint Digital the other evening with SEO specialist Will Critchlow of Distilled, it was interesting to see what a strong sense of SEO said son has developed himself just from his usage of the web. With the Superbowl kicking off as I write now seems as good a time as any to publish the gift and try out his experiment.

His interest in NFL came about through playing the game Madden (10 and 11) which happily has translated itself into the real world – we’ve just got back from a weekend in Ireland where he, his brother and their cousin have been running around the lanes of my wife’s village launching an American football at one another. Interactive media is never better than when it translates into real world action. At the airport leaving on Friday I found out that the EU Fisheries Minister, Maria Damanaki, has pledged to end the horrendous and wasteful practice of fish discarding highlighted in Channel 4′s recent Big Fish Fight campaign, in particular on www.fishfight.net

Update 23.i.12: It’s a year on and my son’s team, the New England Patriots, just made it to the Superbowl last night. He’s delighted people have picked up on his map (like Boltbeat) and is currently working on a follow-up for college teams. As a lover of New York, my second favourite city after my native London, I’ll be donning my Giants cap.

A bumper week of sales in alternative fish

Fish sales soar as celebrity chef campaign hits home

 

Supermarkets and fishmongers report a bumper week of sales in alternative fish like coley, pollack and mackerel after celebrity chefs team up to champion them

 

 

Celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is leading a campaign to change Britain’s fish eating habits

By Richard Tyler 18 Jan 2011 Daily Telegraph 

Billingsgate Market in London has said its 42 traders had seen a surge in demand following the launch of Channel 4’s Fish season last week, which saw chefs Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Jamie Oliver, Heston Blumenthal and Gordon Ramsay extolling the virtues of alternatives to cod, salmon and tuna like coley, Cornish pollack and mackerel.

Tesco, the country’s largest supermarket, said it had sold between 25pc and 45pc more “fresh sardines, coley, brown crab, whiting and sprats” compared to the previous week.

Marks & Spencer said it had its biggest ever week of fish sales, up 25pc on the same week last year, while Sainsbury’s said it had seen 12pc increase in pre-packed fish and a 7pc rise at its fish counters and in frozen fish. Pollock, an alternative to cod, was up 167pc, it said.

“We have managed to get our hands on more Dab than normal. It will influence what our buyer orders,” said a Sainsbury’s spokesman.

Independent fishmongers have also seen a spike in consumer demand and interest in the fish they are buying.

Steve Herbert, who with his brother Graham and their father William, runs W.J. Herbert & Sons on the Wood Green high street, north London, said: “It’s been a good week. Lots of people have been coming up asking about the TV show. There’s been a hell of a lot more coley sold. That had been dropping off.”

However, Mr Herbert said some alternatives like Monkfish and Turbot were too expensive for most customers and even mackerel had risen in price recently. “If the fish is too dear people will just not pay it,” he said.

Mr Herbert said they had seen one-off surges in demand, most notably during the BSE disease crisis that peaked in 1992, and he remained a realist. “We have seen a rise in sales after TV shows before and then it drops away,” he said.

Don Tyler, chairman of the London Fish Merchants Association and a big fan of sprats, said: “Retailers I have spoken to have had a very, very good week. There’s no doubt that the publicity has led the public to be more adventurous.”

He added: “We were very concerned about the publicity over fish getting thrown over board but the campaign has attracted favourable attention to the trade.”

Article reproduced courtesy of Daily Telegraph

Sun pun fun

Fish and Cheaps

By BEN JACKSON, Environment Editor, The Sun

Published: 18 Jan 2011

Fish sales have soared after celebrity chefs teamed up to urge Brits to enjoy a wider range of fish suppers.

Marks & Spencer yesterday reported their biggest ever week of fish sales, up 25 per cent on last year.

Tesco and Waitrose also reported strong sales and Sainsbury’s said sales of pollock are up 167 per cent and mackerel up 60 per cent following The Big Fish Fight series on C4.

Morrisons also saw sales of normally less well-known fish fly off the shelves. Sales are on the up across the board with mackerel and coley increasing by 62% and 393% respectively.

TV chefs Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Heston Blumenthal are backing the campaign to champion lesser known delicacies of the deep. Last night, Hugh’s online campaign calling on the EU to act to cut the vast number of dead fish being thrown overboard reached half a million signatures.

For complete article find your place in The Sun

Jamie joins Hugh on the Big Fish Fight

Extract courtesy of The Sun

Sales of sustainable seafood soar in UK supermarkets

The impact of Channel 4′s Big Fish Fight has started to hit as evinced by this article from The Guardian today:

Sales of sustainable seafood soar in UK supermarkets

Consumers choose coley, dab, mussels, squid and sardines after species were championed by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s in Channel 4′s Fish Fight campaign

* Rebecca Smithers, consumer affairs correspondent
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 17 January 2011 16.55 GMT

Sales of “alternative” species of fish and seafood have soared after being championed in Channel 4′s new Fish Fight campaign, the UK’s leading supermarkets reported today.

Consumers are favouring coley, dab, mussels, squid and sardines over the staple salmon, cod and tuna following the programmes last week, which highlighted the wasteful use of “discard” in fishing practices while encouraging shoppers to take the pressure off popular fish stocks by being more adventurous in what they eat.

The cook and Guardian writer Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, credited with boosting demand for higher-welfare chicken three years ago, has taken the lead in the new campaign. Programmes from fellow chef Jamie Oliver have shown consumers new ways of cooking less popular species such as mussels, squid and trout.

Sainsbury’s said sales of “bycatch” from its fresh fish counter had been “promising” overall, while sales of pollack had leapt by 167% week on week. It said customers had responded well to the fish featured in Jamie Oliver’s programmes with sales of British and MSC-certified mackerel up 60% and mussels up 16%.

Sales of its sustainable “line and pole caught” canned tuna increased by 17% over the last week, while sales of organic salmon grew by 16% and normal salmon sales remained unchanged.

Tesco, the UK’s biggest fish retailer, said it had seen an increase in sales of between 25 and 45% for fresh sardines, coley, brown crab, sprats and whiting in the week since the first programmes. It said in a statement: “We sell around 40 species of fish on our fresh counters and our staff are trained to advise customers on trying new varieties. Sales of fresh cod, herring, mussels, mackerel and canned tuna also increased compared to last week.”

But the supermarket was singled out by Fearnley-Whittingstall for misleading labelling on its canned tuna, leading the company to pledge to catch 100% of its own-brand canned tuna using the “pole and line” method. Tesco last week came fifth out of the major supermarkets in a 2011 league table of sustainable tuna, compiled by Greenpeace.

Waitrose said sales of seafood overall were up by 15% – with most of this increase being attributed to species that have traditionally been less popular. Sales of frozen coley were up by 36%, frozen mackerel up 31% and Dover sole up 163%. A spokeswoman for Waitrose said: “There has also been strong demand for dabs, which we sell frozen. This week we are launching sprats (a fish that has almost been forgotten by UK consumers) and are looking at introducing dabs and coley on our service counters over the coming weeks. We are also introducing Welsh flounder – a species commonly discarded.”

Ally Dingwall, aquaculture and fisheries manager at Sainsbury’s, said: “Fish Fight has had a direct impact on consumer behaviour. It’s encouraging to see a positive shift towards less popular and bycatch fish, and if we can establish continued demand, fishermen will land and sell more of these species, and it may potentially become targeted species. In the last week, our fish sales have risen across the board: from fresh to counter to frozen fish..”

Asda reported “really strong sales across the whole of the fish category in the last week, up 10% on the previous week” with particular growth in the sales of products included in Jamie Oliver’s recipes. Sales of trout fillets, for example, rose by 56%, whole sardines 66% and whole mackerel up by 115%.

Marks & Spencer said it had ordered in over a third more stock than it did for its peak Christmas week. Richard Luney, M&S fish expert, commented: “We had our biggest ever week in the history of M&S on fish sales last week, sales were up 25% versus this time last year. One of the key highlights was on our line–caught tuna that had a record week – so the importance of avoiding purse seined [a large net that catches entire schools of fish] fishing methods obviously really hit home.”

As part of the Fish Fight campaign, consumers have been urged to add their signatures to a letter to the European fisheries minister, Maria Damanaki, calling for the elimination of discards to be elevated to a top priority in the forthcoming review of the European common fisheries policy. Even before the programmes were aired, the letter attracted over 35,000 signatories but this has now risen to well over 500,000. Today, Fearnley-Whittingstall urged consumers: “Please keep spreading the word. Half a million supporters today – less than a week after our shows went out! I wonder if a million sign-ups is a crazy dream … what do you think?”

Article reproduced courtesy of The Guardian

Big Fish Fight

What a great way to start the new year of work, the multiplatform dimension of the Big Fish Fight, a short season of programmes focusing on saving our seas and consuming fish sustainably, powered by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s short series Hugh’s Fish Fight and incorporating programmes by the likes of Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay and Heston Blumenthal.

The season has got off to a cracking start with
* 14,000 sign ups to Hugh’s Fish Fight (Discard) Campaign on the first night, now up to 41,500 within 24 hours – making a total to date of 83,972.
* 80 Fish & Chip Shops added to the MackMap, encouraging alternatives to cod & chips at our local chippers
* Trending #1 on UK Twitter on both nights so far
* over 3,000 people per night joining the Big Fish Fight Facebook campaign hub

The big win so far is Tesco’s changing their tuna sourcing/practices

To add your backing to the campaign sign up simply here

#1 on 11.1.11

#1 on 12.1.11

Illustration by George Butler for Channel 4′s Big Fish Fight online

App app and away

The summer before last I commissioned the fresh, green loveliness we know as Landshare (www.landshare.net) from Keo Films and Mint Digital. It has now sprouted a verdant little app, currently featured on the App Store.

The Landshare website and campaign has sparked a nationwide revolution over the last year. It connects would-be growers of fruit and veg with people with land to share – and they share the produce.

There are currently 2 growers to every 1 plot offered and the new app is designed to enable the public to take action.

• Councils will be held to legal task to provide allotments according to their statuary obligations
  
• tens of thousands of acres of wasted, unproductive land around the UK is to be identified

The Landspotting function was an idea I originally came up with inspired by a long-empty plot at the end of my road, a wasted gap between the last house and a tyre workshop on the corner.

The app functionality includes:

• using the camera with geolocating technology
• giving users live access to expert growers for instant advice
• extending accessibility and full integration of tools with social networks

The Landshare App is free

The app also gives users direct, on-the-move access to the core Landshare tools – extending its ability to match growers to land, through a postcode driven map and listing database, and more. Already, Landshare has seen more than 3,000 acres of land offered and matches in every region of the UK.

It has been cited by the House of Lords, New Local Government Network, the international Wikinomics team and most recently – the Food Ethics Council – as changing the landscape in food accessibility and security.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall spearheads Landshare and says of the new App: “Landshare has always been, literally, a ground-breaking initiative but now it’s set to really push the agenda. We know there are 100,000 people on council waiting lists in England alone, with up to 40 year waits, plus a significant amount of waiting lists that are actually closed! This app will ensure that councils can no longer shut the door to their legal duty to provide.

Landshare has been at the forefront of the debate on land use and accessibility – it is no longer acceptable to say that the land is not available because most of us pass derelict land in our travels every day. By bringing attention to the scale of space that is already on our doorsteps with “LandSpot”, we hope to help enable this potential to be realised and for much more land to be made fertile.”

The Landshare app launched on Friday (6th August 2010) and can be downloaded free at www.landshare.net/iphoneapp

Users without iPhones can also make use of the new tools at www.landshare.net

Some Landshare facts & figures:

• Landshare is a movement of more than 50,000 people – and it’s growing daily.
• The idea came out of Channel 4’s River Cottage, when Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall helped some Bristol families grow food on disused council land.
• More than 100,000 people are on waiting lists for local authority allotments in England.
• An estimated 16% of council waiting lists in England are closed.
• Despite having a legal duty to provide allotments, some 12% of councils do not know what the status of their waiting lists is.
• The Local Government Association reckon that 200,000 allotments have disappeared in the last 30 years
• 6 million people in Britain are estimated to be interested in an allotment.
• There is 60,000 acres of unused rooftop space in London alone.
• There is an estimated 80,000 acres of official derelict land in England.
• In Scotland, more than 44% of derelict land is in urban areas.
• Landshare addresses concern among policy makers about future food security and greenhouse gases from industrial farming and food miles.
• Landshare was recently cited in “Food Justice: The report of the Food and Fairness Inquiry” published July 2010
• It’s one of the best things I’ve commissioned at C4.

And the last word to a happy customer on the App Store: “this app literally changed my life”.