Love Seafood encourages consumers to ‘Bring on Better Living’

Love Seafood celebrates its first birthday on 1 October 2021. Seafish, the public body that supports the UK seafood industry and drives a nationwide consumer marketing initiative, has announced the theme for campaigns in the brand’s second year.

From October onwards, Love Seafood will encourage consumers across the UK to ‘Bring on Better Living’, showcasing how eating seafood can fuel the nation to live better. Marketing activity will focus on reaching target audiences when they’re planning or buying their next meal and highlight why seafood is a great choice.

The new direction for the brand has been informed by qualitative consumer research, carried out by independent market research agency Mustard. This summer they created a pop-up online community of individuals from two of Love Seafood’s target audiences - starting out millennials and stretched families. The aim of the research was to get an in-depth understanding of what is more likely to appeal to these audience groups

Research participants were asked about their perceptions and understanding of seafood, their behaviour when purchasing, cooking and eating seafood and their preferences for species, flavours and dining occasions. They were also asked to share their thoughts on Love Seafood’s past campaigns.

The research concluded that it’s important to play on the positives when promoting seafood, which is seen by consumers as tasty, fresh, light and healthy. It also found that most people are looking for convenience and value when dining at home, but conversely want indulgence and discovery when dining out.

Other research insights which could be applied by seafood businesses include:

• Online and social media are important channels to push message and influence behaviour.
• Perceived expense is a barrier, especially for starting out families – recipes should provide a cost per portion.
• These consumers need guidance on how to prepare and cook seafood - showcase simplicity and speed, grade recipes by complexity and provide easy alternatives if complex prepping is needed.
• They often look for ideas and inspiration and are more likely to try seafood in meals and cuisines they already like – for example pasta, curries and Asian inspired dishes.
• The biggest opportunity lies in exploring if it’s possible to influence buyer behaviour at the point where they’re planning their meals and shopping for the week.

Inspired by this, Love Seafood’s forthcoming year of campaigns will champion the variety of benefits seafood offers, making it the perfect protein for all occasions. Bring on Better Living will also nod to the ever-changing eating behaviours of Love Seafood’s target audiences. It will offer help with meal planning at the start of a week, provide last-minute midweek options and suggest treat dishes for the weekends.

Greg Smith, Head of Marketing at Seafish said:

“We’ve worked closely with insight from consumer research to inform the year two focus for Love Seafood, as we look to build on the strong foundations laid down so far. We’re confident that our new ‘Bring on Better Living’ theme and strapline will land well, helping to embed the Love Seafood message with those we’re targeting.

“We invest in qualitative research to stay close to consumers – and understand how best to play our part in reversing the decline in seafood consumption across the UK. Seafood is a delicious healthy protein, so it’s great to see that consumers are responsive to these positive messages. We’re taking this on board alongside findings on how to approach consumers for different dining situations which will all go towards informing our upcoming campaign plans.

“Love Seafood has been built as a 20-year initiative, because changing consumer hearts and minds takes time. We rely on support from across the incredible seafood industry, to help spread the Love Seafood message across the nation. To date, we’ve worked with some incredibly inspirational people – and captured their amazing stories. We’re really grateful to all the seafood businesses that have helped make the first year of Love Seafood a success. We’ll have more partnership opportunities going forward, so I’d encourage anyone who’d like to support the mission to get in touch.”

Further information about Love Seafood is available on the Seafish website www.seafish.org/love-seafood.

More information on the qualitative research project is also available on the Seafish website www.seafish.org/insight-and-research/consumer-research.

Businesses interested in finding out more or working with Love Seafood can get in touch with the team behind the brand by emailing loveseafood@seafish.co.uk.

ENDS