The audiences behind Seaspiracy

Seaspiracy is currently one of the top documentaries on Netflix globally: in just a few weeks the documentary about the environmental impact of fishing has stirred up quite a bit of controversy and conversation around oceans, fish, and the environment.  

Continuing on our analysis of the audiences behind controversial Netflix documentaries (Cuties/CancelNetflix, The Social Dilemma, and more), we used our Communities feature to understand how different communities in this audience are talking about Seaspiracy differently. 

First off – Seaspiracy is causing quite a bit of stir, with over 67 thousands posts and over 6 billion impressions. Search interest for the topic has been steadily on the rise, as the social and news interest translates into search interest in the documentary and topic.

But like most large topics online, this is not a homogeneous conversation.  

If we segment the audience behind the conversation – a seamless, one-click process with our Communities integration in Pulsar TRAC– we start to see how certain expected –and other more unexpected– audience communities are powering this conversation. 

The largest audience segments in this conversation are: 

• One Direction fans (18%)
• UK environmentalists (12.6%)
• US and UK vegans (7.5%)
• Korean Pet Lovers (5.8%)
• Ocean Conservationists (4.7%),
• Sea Life Advocates (4.5%)
• US progressives (4.2%),
• Latin American and Spanish Animal Advocates (3%)

While many of those communities bring together different shades of environmental or animal advocates, others represent larger groups. The largest community, One Direction fans, seems to have been animated and encouraged to engage with this topic by the many celebrities inviting folks to watch this documentary, including some of the most influential for that segment, BBC broadcaster Alex Scott, singer Anne-Marie, and songwriter from the '90s Bryan Adams. 

But each of these communities is looking a the same documentary through different lenses.

Take, for instance, what the main issue each of these communities believes Seaspiracy to be focusing on: is this a documentary highlighting the pollution and exploitation of the environment, is it about the plight of fish, or is it about the politics which impedes the reform of this system? 

While for the audience as a whole pollution and fish are the main topics, with politics coming in third, zooming in on each community helps us discern how different communities have different priorities and ways of looking at the topic. Korean Pet Lovers (with over 75% of posts relating to the environment) and One Direction Fans (56%) see this as a conversation mainly about pollution, while for the US/UK vegan audience the plight of fish is the main focus, with a larger focus than other communities on the political aspects of this documentary. 

One recurring theme across many audiences? The name of the documentary, which according to many, should have been ConspiraSEA. 

https://twitter.com/MHaffizJ/status/1376488627178336256

There's consistent chatter around the naming choice for this documentary, with hundreds of posts per day mentioning ConspiraSEA as the better option for a title. 

This analysis was conducted with Pulsar TRAC and our Communities integration. Understanding how different audiences talk about brands, topics, people and issues over time can bring powerful and unique insights to your marketing research, planning, creative and messaging. To learn how Pulsar could do this for you, just fill out the form below.