Award-Winning Social Media Marketing Strategy for Ghost Fleet’s Social Impact Campaign
Directed by Shannon Service and Jeffrey Waldron, Ghost Fleet delves into Thailand's fishing industry, which supplies a large portion of the world’s seafood. The country’s giant fishing fleet is chronically short of up to 60,000 fishermen per year, leaving captains scrambling to find crew. Human traffickers have seized upon the labor shortage, selling people from Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos and across Southeast Asia for a few hundred dollars each. Once at sea, the men often go months, or even years, without setting foot on land. Beaten, starved and held in cages, men are forced to work for little or no pay.
The Ghost Fleet impact campaign drove collective industry-wide shift in commitment, investment and action towards increased transparency and traceability of supply chains as well as in safer labor practices for workers. We engaged with the seafood industry directly and screened Ghost Fleet to over 400 industry members, connecting each with resources to support ethical purchasing practices as well as securing commitments from companies to review their supply chain.
We maintained pressure on the seafood industry by raising new awareness among consumers and elected officials alike. Over 11.3 million people have viewed Ghost Fleet content on social media and are empowered to ask where their seafood comes from when making purchasing fish in restaurants and grocery stores. The film has been screened in over 60 festivals and 22 countries. We have also brought Ghost Fleet to Capitol Hill, the United Nations, INTERPOL headquarters and other policy conferences, as well as provided footage to government agencies, including NOAA, FAO, US State Department, US Coast Guard, and others to further awareness around forced labor at sea and the need for improved regulations of imported fish. The heroes of our film were invited to speak at the United Nations during World Oceans Week, where Tun Lin, who was enslaved at sea for 11 years and now fights to liberate others, received a standing ovation. The video of his speech from this event has since gone viral on Facebook, receiving over 1.3 million views without any paid ad support.
