Hugh's Fish Fight Nets Half a Million Supporters Overnight

Smoke me a kipper I'll be back for breakfast!

I've been known to post a few fishy tales up here, for example some jibber jabber about a Hirst shark [that I have now found and will sell to the highest bidder btw] or some nonsense about aussies staying afloat in a flood but today lets look at something truly fish-tastic and an excellent example of making the best of social media to amplify a great cause. Sometimes it's well worthwhile trawling-the-web to do some actual good - dude.

Hugh's Fish Fight aired on TV last week and calls for the end of "discarding" AKA wasting dead fish or chucking the tiddlers overboard. It's like as contoversial as water-boarding terrorists - but genuinely lethal to the extremely innocent fish. There is more to it than meets the fish-eye of course. The ultimate aim of the campaign [read all about it on www.fishfight.net] is to lobby the government and other grey suited bore-ocrats to change ludicrous legislation that forces fishermen to discard AKA "waste" fish [like Free Willy, Nemo and Flipper etc] that get pulled up with the catch but that they cannot legally land.

Kurt Cobain was quite right when he said something like "It's ok to fish, cos they don't have any feelings" and I like the fact that this campaign is not about hurting fishes feelings - it's about not wasting the fish and plaice-ing them on your plate.

Anyway, so I felt compelled to sign up after watching the show last week but quite predictably I suppose the .net site had snagged / crashed on the TV popularity rocks and was not available. I found Hugh's fishy Twitter stream and from there found Hugh's fishy Facebook page where I was able to sign up. At the time something like 150,000 odd people had signed up and I saw and update email from Hugh a few days ago to say how stoked he was that he'd reached 300k and that he'd love to shoot for the half-million. Well just 3 days later here we are - power to the people, micro-chips and his celebrity chumps Ramsay St, Oliver and the food-come-scientist Blumingfelloffthementalchart. Pass me some Turkey Twizzlers and break open the tartar sauce Hugh's done it - doubling his target 250k supporters about 5 months ahead of plan! Awesomeness.

On a socail media note "Good catch" chef Fearnley Whittingstall also for the fishy widget [cast your eyes over the tasty fish widget below] for goody two-shoes bloggers to share the f-word further. If you love eating fish hook yourself up with the widget now.

P.S. You are clearly slightly queer if you don't eat the skin / batter - it's the best bit.

Cash in the Attic search for lost Hirst shark art and Vincent's fish pickle

A post exploring the lost material world of Damien Hirst's shark and Vincent’s alter ego.

Remember recently I told you about my Damien Hirst Shark that's lost in the attic. Well I still can't find it, but it's definitely up there, unless the international art tiddler thieves have paid me a visit. Anyway I'm thinking the best solution to finding and selling my shark is getting the wide-boys from the BBC's Cash in the Attic team to head up there with their flash lights, pin stripe suits and clipboards. I'll be in touch by the usual channels etc. Or I'll just flog it on eBay with the usual sob story. I have a hole in my wallet the size of a mortgage that I need to fill - and to feed some hungry mouths - that's why I'm hawking the shark and selling my prized Triumph GT6 etc.

This week I popped up to my mum and dads for a rare family visit, one of the benefits of almost living on benefits. My mum and dad are lovely people. Life hasn't been too kind to them. My dad has a wonky leg and my mum has MS. But that's never stopped them nor has it stopped them from being ace. They are super generous and have bailed me out of many a hole over the years. Thanks mom n pops. And mom makes the best spicy tomato chutney. I couldn't resist bringing a few more jars home with me to add to my personal pickle mountain.

Thinking I could do something good with the pickle, I endeavored to launch the worlds first ever Twitter pickle contest. Genius. Promoting the contest via my Twitter, Facebook, Twitpic and my blog like you do. A few days in, and with a respectable volume of eyeballs, a few generous re-tweeters, and a lot of chutney fun, I noticed that absolutely nobody had gone to the trouble of actually entering. Hmmm.

I can make several assumption based on the data available and some marketing woolyness --->

[A] That no one [except me] knows how good my mums pickle is and no one loves her.

[B] That my prize value was simply not tasty enough to get people out of bed. Echoing something digital Jedi Matt Morrison from Porter Novelli said at WOMUK’s espresso briefing - about needing king-size round the world trip size prizes to get a king-size reaction. My professional experience in online marketing supports this, unlike my personal micro pickle campaign.

[C] You need to start with a bigger base than my modest circle of lazy friends and followers to acheive a mega viral reach.

[D] Ohh and that you need to be reactive and know when to stop flogging a dead horse, cow, sheep, shark, or pickled tomato.

[E] That you need to combine all the above with a super compelling campaign - as nicely put by the guys at WeAreVI on their very pretty looking blog this week.

[F] Or finally finally that I'm just twittering on to myself, like an schizophrenic with an invisible friend [but the data just doesn't support that thankfully].


Anyway, I decided to change the rules of the game and to shut it down. And I've rewarded the most engaging and interesting twitti-pants with chutney prizes. The winners are frequent re-tweeter and chutney ferret @PipWilson and @vincentstinks a digital nerd with an artistic alter-ego, who in his altered state of artistic-ness, and not unlike the shark man of yesteryear, is selling his work through the Saatchi Gallery, nice work monsieur bixentro.

I'd like to point out to Vincent that owning a Hirst shark doesn't necessarily make you a materialistic whore. I was just a canny kid in the right place at the right time that landed a little big fish. I'm letting it go [to the highest bidder] for elastic rather than plastic reasons. If and when I sell it, I'll give at least a small percentage to a charity of my mum’s choosing.

Legal fluff: If anyone actually enters the chutney competition naturally I’ll honor the terms of the contest and prizes, from the aforementioned chutney mountain. The closing date is midnight 15th November.

Drawing the week to a frightening fishy end

Drawing the week to a close with one final blast at permanently scaring my daughter with Billy the Fish meets Dracula (see above). She's really getting the hang of this. Now the great fart debate ---> Fish and chips or curry for supper tonight?