Boston-based Legal Sea Foods is in some hot water with environmental groups lately due to its latest advertising campaign. The 15-second commercials start off like an environmental PSA, encouraging viewers to save sea creatures like salmon, crabs and trout, but abruptly change course, discussing how they plan to cook it all up. Check out one of the videos:
I laughed out loud the first time I saw it. Hilarious, no?
Environmentalists aren’t laughing, though, bashing Legal Sea Foods for its fish farming practices. Director of Greenpeace Oceans John Hocevar said in a statement, “Ironically, the trout sold by Legal Sea Foods is farmed and has never seen a golden brook or sunlit stream. The choice isn’t between putting fish on a pedestal or eating them, it’s between reforming the way we produce our seafood or irrevocably degrading our oceans.”
Legal Sea Foods is not unfamiliar with criticism for their advertising campaigns, though. Back in 2009, the restaurant faced some slack for their MBTA “Fresh Fish” ad series, which included phrases like, “Kiss my bass;” “If that’s your girlfriend, I’d throw her back;” and “Darn, you smell like carp.”
In response to the criticism of the new commercials, Legal issued an official company statement, in which president and CEO Roger Berkowitz said, “Sure, people may jump to the conclusion that we’re being flip about the topic, but it’s quite the opposite. This is a debate we need to have. We need to constantly question where fish comes from and how it was caught and, moreover, demand more from those tasked with protecting the fish supply.”
A recent Boston Magazine article agrees with Greenpeace, though, calling out Legal on their contradictory commercials, noting the salmon on the menu did not swim in streams like the ads say but were raised on a salmon farm. “Junk science to prove a silly point, eh Legal Sea Foods? Your food may be tasty, but that ad is misleading, and the follow-up rhetoric is, well, tough to swallow,” the article quipped.
However, I think they’re missing the point. The ads never explicitly say Legal Sea Foods catches its fish fresh from the ocean; Berkowitz simply said he hoped the ads would open a dialogue about where your food does indeed come from.
Besides, the ads are doing their job: turning heads and getting people to talk about the restaurant chain that’s been a staple in the Boston-area for 43 years. Let’s face it, if the ad featured attractive, multicultural actors musing over how much they enjoy the seafood that brings them together for their weekly family get-togethers, we’d all be yawning. And thinking of Olive Garden.
“The next generation that’s coming in, that’s enjoying fish now tends to be younger,” Berkowitz tells WBZ NewsRadio. “They grew up watching South Park, not Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.”
Well played, Berkowitz. Boston – get a sense of humor, Boston.
