Hugh's Fish Fight: Save Our Seas sets Twitter on fire

1 March 2013

The final episode of Hugh’s Fish Fight: Save Our Seas  struck a chord with viewers and generated over 38,000 tweets.   The storm of tweets followed Hugh’s on-screen call-to-action to get viewers to tweet some of the U.K.’s biggest supermarkets and challenge their relationships with fisheries that may practice potentially harmful or unsustainable fishing tactics.

Fish Fighter Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall had been unable to obtain on camera interviews with Tesco, Morrisons, and Cooperative on the issue.  To galvanise support for his campaign, Hugh asked  viewers before the ad break, “Well they won’t talk to me, maybe they’ll talk to you—tweet them now.” Viewers were then encouraged to tweet at the supermarkets’ official Twitter handles: @morrisonsnews, @UKtesco and @co-operativefood.

The response was significant, KEO Digital along with Telescope Inc. were able to create a live-tweet storm over the  two-minute break. The Twitter interaction was then presented to viewers live graphically in the next part of the programme.

Broken down, the Twitter response count at tx was 16,139 and by the end of the programme reached 32,000 tweets.  After the transmission on Channel 4  + 1 it rose to 37,000.  As of 11:50 am on Friday 1st March over 38,000 had tweeted the supermarkets.

Adam Gee, Channel 4 Multi-Platform Commissioning Editor 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. What Hugh has highlighted in the show are really significant problems around the future sustainability of our oceans, the kind of challenges that sit at the heart of Channel 4’s remit."

“Knitting live opinion and public emotion directly back to the broadcast stream was our challenge. Working with Telescope, Twitter and Channel4 we achieved exactly that, we added and element of ‘live’ to a prerecorded program and in turn, made Fish Fight a live experience,” said Simon Deverell, Creative Director, KEO digital. “This unique TV and digital campaign not only gives the audience a voice, it also creates a visual reflection of that voice which has enhanced the noise around the whole Fish Fight campaign. We’re very excited about what opportunities lie ahead”

“Twitter's most powerful instigator continues to be television,” said Jason George, CEO of Telescope, Inc.  “However, Twitter at its most actualizing continues to be about social good.  This initiative proved those two powers can be merged, and we are thrilled to have worked with KEO Digital and Channel 4 to enable their audiences to engage in real-time and drive impact beyond the TV screen.

 

Notes to Editors

Hugh’s Fish Fight:  Save Our Seas

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall embarks on a brand new battle to try to Save Our Seas. Two thirds of the planet's fish stocks are overfished, and a fifth of the world's stocks have collapsed altogether.  Hugh’s plan is to persuade governments around the world to set up many more marine protected areas, to redress the balance in the seas, and allow consumers to continue to enjoy the benefits of eating fish. Riding the wave of success for his recent campaign to end fish discards, Hugh takes his new campaign to the far corners of the planet including Antarctica, Thailand and the Philippines, as well as all round the UK. His Save Our Seas campaign is aptly timed as the Government has launched a public consultation process on 127 proposed Marine Conservation Zones around England. These zones will be protected from the fishing methods that damage marine life. But for now, the Government has said it only wants to consider 31 of these sites. Hugh wants to prove that there is huge public support for a full network of 127 sites to safeguard our seas. So he sets out to use his massive army of 850,000 fish fighters to respond to the proposals through the Fish Fight website.

www.fishfight.net

About KEO digital

KEO digital produces sites and apps that empower the public to make a real difference to their everyday day lives and help organizations, corporations or governments to make positive change for themselves, their audiences and ultimately the world. KEO digital was born out of the development and management of the hugely successful Chicken Out website that accompanied Hugh’s Chicken Run series in 2009 on Channel 4.  The division has drawn on much of the talent responsible for the digital output of River Cottage, which currently encompasses a community of over 500,000 people on the award-winning River
Cottage.net.  Since it started KEO digital has created further successful campaigns and projects, notably Fish Fight which has achieved a review of the EU Common Fisheries Policy by gathering over 750,000 names on an online petition, and Landshare.

About Telescope

Telescope Inc. is the market leader in audience participation, consumer engagement, and mobile technology for live television. Managing over 1.5 billion consumer interactions every year, Telescope specializes in cross-platform solutions for media networks and brands to both capture and monetize fans and consumers via real-time engagement across digital devices and multiple platforms. With a technology platform used by the world’s largest media brands, biggest social platforms, content owners, and leading Fortune 500 companies, the company delivers high-capacity audience participation and second-screen technology, supporting the largest and most demanding mass-volume televised campaigns and record-breaking events. For more information, visit us on Facebook, Twitter, or www.telescope.tv.