CONSUMER AWARENESS ABOUT AQUACULTURE IN EUROPE: A COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGN IN THE FutureEUAqua PROJECT

Stakeholders believe that consumers play an important role in the promotion of aquaculture, especially regarding organic production (Lembo et al., 2018 ). Scholars have identified a general low awareness concerning aquaculture (Zander et al., 2018), which varies according to the species (Garza-Gil et al., 2016) and location (Froehlich et al, 2017). This low awareness persists despite media exposure (Papacek, 2018). However, consumers report some concern and awareness about general issues associated with seafood production, such as how it effects the environment (Jacobs et al., 2015a), its impact on the sustainability of fish populations (Bacher, 2016) and its influence on people’s health (Jacobs et al., 2015b). Yet, there is lack of awareness about specific production methods, such as integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA) (Alexander et al., 2016) and labels associated with sustainable production in general (Feucht & Zander, 2015). The main objective of this study was to develop recommendations for social media communication strategies for increasing consumer awareness, perception and acceptance of European aquaculture. The recommendations were based on scientific literature, evaluations of the effectiveness of previous and current communication campaigns, the consumer survey results in previous stages of the FutureEUaqua project and experimental testing of the types of messages in social media that are preferred by consumers.