USAID PROGRAM FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF AQUATIC RESOURCES AND ECONOMIC ALTERNATIVES
DELIVERABLE No. 3B2: sustainable seafoodCAMPAIGN strategy
28 February 2011
This publication was produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development. It was prepared by Solimar International.
DELIVERABLE NO. 3B2: sustainable seafoodCAMPAIGN strategy
Contract No. EPP-I-00-04-00020-00-SOL
Submitted by: Solimar International
Contact: Hamilton McNutt, Program Manager
1327 14th Street, NW, Suite 320
Washington, DC 20005
Tel: (202) 518-6192 x109
Fax: (202) 518-6194
Email:
Submitted To: Chemonics International
The author’s views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the United
States Agency for International Development or the United States Government
CONTENTS
1. Introduction…4
1.1 Purpose…5
1.2 Objectives…5
1.3 Guiding principles of the strategy…5
2. Strategic framework of communication…6
2.1 Communication objectives…6
2.2 Target audiences…6
2.3 Target behavior…6
2.4 Identifying barriers for target behavior…7
2.5 Identifying approaches to address the barriers to target behavior…7
2.6 Designing and developing messages…7
2.7 Selecting suitable mediums and tools…8
3. Key elements of successful implementation of communication strategy…9
3.1 Barriers for implementation…9
3.2 Identifying approaches to address the barriers to implementation…10
3.3 Partnerships in communication…11
1. Introduction
Harvesting food from the world’s oceans and waterways has been a way of life for humans for tens of thousands of years. Beginning with coastal fishing humans have found increasingly ingenious ways to increase the range of their harvesting and the amount they can take. The vastness of our oceans has led us to wrongly assume that this bounty was without limits, and for most of recorded history, that has been the case. However with the rise of commercial fishing and more efficient ways to harvest seafood we have begun to see fisheries collapsing around the world. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) 2008 State of the World’s Fisheries and Aquaculture report, global fisheries capture in 2006 totaled 92 million tons. This astounding sum is equal to 252 Empire State Buildings; just the changes in fisheries capture from year to year are measured in the millions of tons. The report also estimates that 52% of the world’s fisheries are fully exploited, and unable to produce any more without threatening the fishery’s future; that 19% of fisheries were overexploited, 8% were depleted, and 1% were recovering from depletion. This means only 20% of fisheries in the world were not being utilized up to or past their maximum potential (18% moderately exploited, 2% under exploited).[1] Approximately 29% of fished species’ populations were considered collapsed in 2003 and it is predicted that global fisheries will experience total collapse by 2048 if current trajectories are not altered.[2] And, with seafood consumption doubled over the past 30 years, this trajectory does not show any signs of alteration without a strong exogenous influence.
While humans have essentially stopped foraging for terrestrial food sources, opting instead to cultivate the land agriculturally, in the oceans we continue to hunt down wildlife. In fact, seafood represents the last food market supplied from wild natural resources. We have simply not thought of seafood as being something that needs to be replenished. However, there has recently been strong movement toward conserving marine resources and thinking of fisheries as something that needs to be replenished and not only harvested. Among efforts that include local regulation, international treaties, and private-sector self-regulation, there also exist several initiatives to educate consumers about “sustainable seafood.” Most notably the Marine Stewardship Council – the result of collaboration between the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Unilever – has a program that certifies fisheries worldwide as sustainable based on audits of an entire supply chain from boat to table. The Monterrey Bay Aquarium and the Blue Ocean Institute have pocket guides and innovative informative materials to provide consumers with information on the sustainability of seafood purchases. The pocket guides focus on informing consumers about the sustainability of seafood purchases.
In order to maximize effectiveness of these campaigns, Gudmundsson and Wessells outline three elements comprising the sustainability criteria of both the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries act and the FAO’s guidelines: harvesting methods (e.g. nets, long-lines, purse-seines, etc.), biological considerations (e.g. stock size, age/size, size of capture, etc.), and socioeconomic issues (e.g. income distribution, regulatory institutions, equity, etc.). Their analysis further concluded that no matter what criteria were used the most important factor for the success of ecolabelprograms is full understanding of the meaning behind the labels by consumers.[3] Similarly, Wessells, Johnston, & Donath stated that any labeling program can only be effective in the long-run when accompanied by market research and consumer education.[4] This sustainable seafood campaign will provide information to customers to encourage sustainable seafood purchases focusing on providing an understanding of the issues while coupling a primarily informative campaign with high impact imagery to draw the attention of target audiences.
1.1 Purpose
The purpose of this document is to outline the strategy to be employed by a sustainable seafood campaign to be piloted in the Cahuita-Gandoca-Bocas del Toro region and later adapted and scaled up to the Central American region. The document will explain the use of social marketing methodology to effect changes in behavior and attitude, define objectives for the campaign, identify target behaviors and target audiences and finally to identify an implementation strategy. The document will serve as a guide for collateral design and final implementation strategy needed to achieve the campaign’s objectives.
1.2 Objectives
The objective of this campaign is to reduce the pressure on vulnerable fisheries in Central America by increasing the sensitivity of regional seafood consumers to sustainability issues related to commercially harvested species.
1.3 Guiding principles of the strategy
Social marketing techniques harness marketing strategies to create changes in the behaviors and attitudes of target audience populations. These campaigns and strategies have been heavily used to deliver public health messages (e.g. buckle your seatbelt, quit smoking, don’t drink and drive, get your flu shot, etc.) as well as environmental ones (e.g. don’t litter, recycle, save the whales, etc.). The strategies will employ various mediums to convey consistent messages to prompt seafood consumers to consider sustainability when making purchasing decisions by moving through steps to increase knowledge, form beliefs, and then to act on those beliefs based on knowledge and an understanding of the benefits of these actions.
The campaign will focus on providing diners with appropriately and clearly packaged information to make sustainable decisions when purchasing seafood. There will also be a call to action to engage diners to participate in a movement that puts each decision into the context of a global shift in seafood purchasing decisions.
2. Strategic framework of communication
2.1 Communication objectives
The general objectives of the campaign are to cause a change in awareness and thereby a change in attitude and behavior among seafood consumers toward sustainable seafood. The desired effects of the campaign are to create a mentality of stewardship and a desire to support sustainably caught seafood. These general objectives will be achieved by leading audiences through the following specific communication objectives:
- To know: That overfishing is a serious problem threatening the oceans and all marine life.
- To believe: That making sustainability a consideration when purchasing seafood protects the balance of marine and coastal ecosystems.
- To do: Educate yourself on sustainable seafood, make sustainable seafood purchases, and support businesses that serve sustainable seafood.
- Benefits: You will be able to enjoy your favorite foods well into the future; you can help to protect sensitive ecosystems.
2.2 Target audiences
The primary target audience for this awareness campaign is consumers of seafood, specifically diners at restaurants, which are divided between local residents and tourists. The secondary audiences are sources of information for the primary audience, specifically, hotel staff, restaurant owners, and wait staff. Hotel staff are often the primary source of general information for travelers and restaurant staff will be able to orient clients to view informative materials prior to making purchases.
The campaign will target receptive audiences that are disposed to considering sustainability criteria when making seafood purchases and provide them with the motivation and information necessary to do so.
2.3 Target behavior
The campaign will target a change in consumer purchasing behavior. Currently, there does not exist any certification programs for fisheries in Panama or Costa Rica, while Costa Rican fisheries managers have had more success at enforcing fisheries law, neither country has been able to begin the long and expensive process of certifying any of their fisheries with one of the internationally recognized fisheries certification programs, such as the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). This lack of official certification places the onus for responsible seafood purchases on the consumers’ shoulders. As a result the drivers of most seafood purchases are based on taste and price, and this campaign seeks to insert sustainability into this decision-making process.
2.4 Identifying barriers for target behavior
Taste: Most consumers make purchasing decisions based on tastes and price. These tastes may often include a desire to consume products that are not sustainable. This presents a serious barrier for achieving desired behavioral changes if taste or perceptions of taste are still the primary driver of the decision-making process for consumers.
Price: Price is the other primary driver of decision-making for most consumers. There is a perception that sustainability costs more, and in some cases this is true. In fact, consumers often pay a price premium for sustainable products. Despite the significant portion of consumers that report a willingness to pay a premium for sustainable products, there will be a limit to the ability to pay for such products that varies widely with each customer.
Apathy: General apathy and a lack of motivation is another serious barrier for target behavior. Many consumers would rather not bother to include sustainability in their decision-making. These consumers might feel that their behavior does not make a big difference in one way or the other. They also might be preoccupied with more urgent and immediate considerations that affect them more directly, pushing sustainability as a factor in decision-making to a much lower priority. They might also simply value their own pleasure over any external effects of their behavior.
2.5 Identifying approaches to address the barriers to target behavior
Taste: In most cases sustainability criteria will not remove items from menus outright. Suitable sustainable alternatives with similar flavors and textures can be suggested.
Price: The campaign should identify low-cost alternatives to overexploited seafood species and include them as suggestions for consumers. Eating sustainably harvested seafood is not always more expensive; often it may even be less expensive in the case of high prices for overexploited and rarer species, or high demand items like lobsters.
Apathy: General apathy is not an insurmountable barrier to behavior change. In the case of seafood consumers who believe their actions do not represent a significant impact on global fisheries and feel like their behavior does not matter, the campaign should include motivational language and a call to action. The campaign should frame the desired behavior as part of a larger movement.
2.6 Designing and developing messages
In order to achieve the four primary communication objectives, high-impact imagery-focused materials will transmit the central problem that “overfishing is a serious problem threatening the oceans and all marine life.” These materials will couple the problem with a corresponding solution that “making sustainability a consideration when purchasing seafood protects the balance of marine and coastal ecosystems” which benefits them by “enabling them to enjoy their favorite foods well into the future while helping to protect sensitive ecosystems.” Finally, messaging should end with a call to action prompting audiences to “educate themselves on sustainable seafood, make sustainable seafood purchases and support businesses that serve sustainable seafood.” Materials may be designed to focus more on one element of this line of reasoning or another, but all materials should address each of the four communication objectives.
These high-impact materials should then be paired with portable guides and informative cards or menu inserts in restaurants so that seafood consumers can educate themselves on sustainability guidelines. These informative materials will focus on informing diners about two of the three elements identified by Gudmunssen and Wessels, harvesting methods and biological considerations. The third element, socioeconomic factors, should be incorporated in future initiatives, though, considering the primary element necessary for seafood labeling success is the understanding of the criteria, the third element would unnecessarily complicate messages and reduce understanding by audiences.
The underlying message to consider sustainability of fisheries and seafood species populations and their ecosystems will be specified per species to provide diners with information about how each species is most likely harvested and information about biological considerations of age, size, and reproduction cycles. This information can be pre-packaged into coded symbols that represent how sustainable each species is following precedents set by the Monterrey Bay Aquarium, the Blue Ocean Institute, and the World Wildlife Fund. These coded symbols must include a key to explain their meaning to ensure success but overwhelming customers with too much data at the point of purchase can cause the undesirable effect of losing the audience’s attention.
2.7 Communication mediums and tools
The campaign will employ various mediums to transmit its central messages including:
High-impact imagery-focused signage:
-Signage will help to promote the four communications objectives and to actively engage customers.
-These signs will be placed strategically in points where tourists seek information in visitor information centers and participating hotels and restaurants.
Laminated table cards and menu inserts:
-Information-driven materials that are easily understandable will help to educate seafood consumers at the point of purchase after they have been engaged and recruited by high-impact signage.
-Table cards and menu inserts will be given with menus or placed on tables in participating restaurants
Portable pocket guides:
-Information-driven materials that can be carried on the person to ensure that information is available even if a restaurant is not participating in the campaign.
-Though some printed guides may be produced to be handed out in visitor information centers and participating hotels and restaurants, these will also be made available online for downloading and printing.
Webpage:
-A webpage provides a medium for communication that can be extremely cost-effective with a large enough scope.
-A webpage will enable the campaign to provide more information to interested seafood consumers than would be possible on printed materials.
-A webpage also enables the most up-to-date information to be available to target audiences without significant costs associated with updating printed materials.
-A webpage can provide links to other initiatives and campaigns to enable seafood consumers recruited to action by this campaign to access regional specific information for more sustainability-focused decision-making regardless of their location.
3. Key elements of successful implementation of communication strategy
The successful implementation of the campaign relies on:
-High impact placement of materials.
-Permission from local government offices for signage placement.
-Strategic cooperation from hotel and restaurant staff.
-Participation by local press to promote the initiative and further educate target audiences.
3.1 Barriers for implementation
Lack of participation by restaurants:
-Restaurants may be reluctant to participate if their menus include offerings that are deemed to be unsustainable.
-Restaurants might feel that revenues could be negatively affected through participation.
-Restaurants might be disinclined to participate if they feel that orienting staff would require too much effort and time.
-Restaurants may also be reluctant to participate due to apathy or a negative disposition towards environmental initiatives.
Lack of participation by hotels:
-Hotels might not participate if they do not feel like they benefit from participation.
-Hotels might be disinclined to participate if they feel that orienting staff would require too much effort and time.
Lack of participation by local government:
-Local government might not be disposed to donate space or grant permission to locate signage.
Lack of participation by local press:
-Local press is often in search of material for publication or broadcast. This helps to limit the likelihood that local press do not participate in the campaigns. However, there may be costs associated with coverage, in which case, the cost-effectiveness of this medium may no longer be positive.
3.2 Identifying approaches to address the barriers to implementation
Ensure participation by restaurants:
-Restaurants will not be asked to make any changes to menus in the early phase of the campaign. Simply informing customers of sustainable choices will influence some decisions, and as the campaign gains traction incentives may be more readily identifiable to entice restaurants to make menu changes.
-Besides requiring no menu changes, restaurants can be assured that revenues will not necessarily be reduced and on the contrary, many customers are willing to pay a premium to ensure that their purchases contribute to ecosystem sustainability.
-Materials should require minimal explanation. In fact, materials will be most effective if they are self-explanatory. As such, minimal orientation will be needed for restaurant staff.