Secret Island Salmon’s “F-word campaign,” which playfully refers to farmed salmon in taglines such as “F*** it,” is generating buzz and engagement throughout the seafood industry and with consumers.
Daniel Del Coro, the head of U.S. business development for Puerto Montt, Chile-based Salmones Austral, which owns the Secret Island Salmon brand, helped to create the campaign, along with the brand’s marketing team. Del Coro talked with SeafoodSource about the meaning behind the campaign, as well as consumers’ and the seafood industry’s reactions to it.
SeafoodSource: How did the campaign come about? Why did you and other Salmones Austral executives decide to communicate about farmed salmon and your company in this way?
Del Coro: I come to the aquaculture – and farmed salmon – industry as an outsider. I started with Sea to Table, a national seafood brand based in Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A., while they were a startup in 2013, as their national director of restaurant sales. [My outsider status] has been a benefit because I’m able to analyze the established narratives and marketing tactics relatively objectively.
What I saw from the outset is a product that is misunderstood by consumers. This misunderstanding is collectively rooted in outdated data, faulty information, or a combination of both. The result is a product that may not have a positive consumer sentiment in the marketplace, yet in the U.S., farm-raised salmon wins the majority of market share. More specifically, Chilean salmon is the most widely consumed farmed product in the U.S.
So, there’s a major disconnect. We saw that as an opportunity to control our narrative and help shape consumer opinion by putting our finger directly on the issue itself and not shying away from a healthy dialogue with people who have valid concerns.
Early on in building the Secret Island brand, we’d receive negative or detracting comments on our social feeds about how bad farmed salmon was, and I would take the time to answer each one of those concerns directly. What I found was that if you engage people directly and transparently, you can establish trust. From there, it’s about clearing up misunderstandings, myths, and factual inaccuracies. It’s also about bringing people up to speed on what aquaculture is today in 2023. This isn’t 40 to 50 years ago!
I was sitting with our marketing team, and we were discussing this negative public perception of farmed salmon [and] we all saw an opportunity to capture some whitespace and help shape the narrative. We brainstormed some ideas and landed on something around how people perceive farming to be a dirty word, and then from there, we put some ideas on the whiteboard. We started to see the campaign come together around the obvious wordplay between farm and the other four-letter word and liked the playful tone and the layered meaning.
SeafoodSource: Were you concerned about how consumers might react to such an edgy campaign?
Del Coro: We sat with it for some time and did a lot of research and due diligence to make sure it was something we truly wanted to build and execute. Eventually, we decided that it was a calculated risk worth taking because it was a conversation we honestly wanted to have with U.S. consumers. I’ll admit it took me a while to be comfortable with this campaign. I love innovating and breaking new ground, but it does come with a certain risk analysis. It’s one thing to draw up ideas in your office; it’s another thing to actually put them out into the world. Consumers today want transparency, and we’re able to deliver that to them with creative, entertaining content. It’s a win-win.
SeafoodSource: When did the campaign launch? What type of reaction have you seen from consumers and the industry as a whole?
Del Coro: The F-word campaign is in its first phase during National Seafood Month [in October]. We wanted to test it and learn about messaging, content, and platforms. We publicly unveiled the campaign at Natural Products Expo East in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., at the end of September and then continued at the Responsible Seafood Summit up in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, two weeks later.
Honestly, people went out of their way to tell us how much they liked it. They thought it was funny – a bit cheeky maybe – but ultimately, it got their attention. It made them stop and notice us. And then, what do we do once we have their attention? We entertain and educate. If you spend 30 seconds with a clip on TikTok, hopefully we’ll make you laugh and you’ll learn something. If you want to learn more, you can go on our website or watch a video and take a deeper dive. The important thing is that there’s substance behind the fun messaging. Otherwise, it wouldn’t work.
The initial response from consumers, peers, and buyers has been overwhelmingly positive. I’ve been really busy since the shows fielding interest from a number of national buyers across the retail landscape. Consumers and peers are also finding me and just sending a message of encouragement or appreciation for the campaign. We’ve even had some other salmon farmers from other areas of the world ask if they could use the messaging. I’ll admit we’re not quite ready to broaden the platform, but it’s something we are considering doing in the future.
SeafoodSource: How is Secret Island Salmon raised and handled to ensure it is a sustainable product that consumers can trust?
Del Coro: Our parent company, Salmones Austral, is deeply committed to advancing aquaculture and has taken major steps on the path to sustainability. They were the first Chilean salmon company to sign on to the Science Based Target Initiatives (SBTi) and have also invested in their infrastructure by building the largest RAS facility in Latin America earlier this year. So structurally, we’re built for the long-haul and have organized our operations to execute efficiently to bring the best possible quality product to market.
We’re proudly Best Aquaculture Practices 4-Star certified and do a lot of work with Global Seafood Alliance to support their mission. We also hold Aquaculture Stewardship Council certification, among others. It’s important that our processes are audited by trusted third parties.
Photo courtesy of Salmones Austral
