The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) has expanded its North American marketing campaign under the tagline “Sea Green. Be Green.” as it works to raise awareness and understanding of the ASC label.
The ASC launched its largest public-facing marketing campaign ever in 2022, with the initial tagline “New Way to Seafood.” Mark Lang, who was the U.S. marketing director for ASC at the time, told SeafoodSource the goal of the campaign was to begin bringing the seafood certification organization’s story to the public to both bring greater awareness of the ASC label and awareness of the benefits of aquaculture in general.
That initial run served as a test that ASC iterated on in subsequent years and is now expanding through retail activations, restaurant promotions, media outreach, social/digital engagement, influencer collaborations, high-profile tasting events, and thought leadership activations.
ASC North America Marketing Manager Athena Davis told SeafoodSource during the 2025 Seafood Expo North America – which ran from 16 to 16 May in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. – that those initial campaigns have proven even more successful than it initially hoped.
“We did not expect to be joined by partners and supporters across industries, and we did not expect to be making such significant consumer impact, which we now have evidence of through our latest consumer survey,” Davis said.
Davis said the “proof is in the pudding” with numbers that the organization has been seeing – but that the direct interactions that ASC has had with the general public has also proven to be incredibly rewarding, especially given what it has learned about the base of knowledge most people have about aquaculture.
“No matter what industry you’re in, most people really don’t know as much as you might expect them to know,” Davis said. “I think the interest we’ve had ... and potentially changing perspective and decisions has been incredibly rewarding; that’s also been one of the biggest surprises.”
While launched as a way to build awareness and attention for the ASC label, the campaign has also managed to help change perspectives about aquaculture as a whole, she said.
“That’s really helped our messaging, the way we’re able to openly talk with people and demystify [aquaculture] a bit,” Davis said.
Davis said the ASC has approached the consumer market in a few different ways – both to help consumers understand what the ASC is and what it means and that it’s more than just marketing.
“We also realize that in seafood, with your average consumer, we have a really long way to go, so we want to encourage people to talk about seafood, think about cooking with seafood more often, get people eating more seafood on a weekly basis,” Davis said. “So, sometimes our messaging is really quite soft and just about getting people comfortable with that because I think as much as farmed seafood can have misconceptions about it, seafood in general really does as well and people can be very hesitant to even dive into seafood.”
As the campaign enters its fourth year, the ASC is changing the way it operates.
“This year, we are doing two major markets – Boston and Seattle – which is the first time we are really going into two of America’s most seafood-y cities that are more wild leaning, so that’s a great test,” Davis said. “So far, the reception has been wonderful.”
The campaign is also building more flexibility and reaching into more locations with other promotions, including a restaurant preview in New Orleans, Louisiana, that kicked off on 9 April and will run through May.
“We’re working with BluGlacier and Inland Foods, both chain of custody-certified and with certified salmon, and then we will be at the French Quarter fest,” Davis said.
Throughout the promotional process, ASC is placing a big emphasis on helping certified producers of seafood sell their products – in part as an acknowledgement of the high standards that ASC requires of its certified products.
“We know it’s not easy to maintain the certifications and to make the steps on the farm to be able to do that and hold on to that,” Davis said. “We really do want to show the value of the label and see proof of that in the marketplace. I think that continues to reinforce itself, and companies have been asking us to do this for a long time. We’re happy to be able to show that it’s working.”
