We’re excited to present you the results of the first two surveys we’ve taken – one at the beginning of their journey, and one at the end of the quarter. 35 Oceaneers have completed them.
Composition & types
More than half of our Oceaneers are in their 20s!
It’s joyful for us to see that we’re attracting a young crowd: More than 50% of Oceaneers are between 20 and 29. After all, people in their twenties have lots of energy and if that energy is channeled in the right direction, it can move mountains (or Oceans, for our matter).
Having said that, we’re also super proud to have 2 Oceaneers that are above 50. We believe that for any community that wants to flourish it’s crucial to have ‘more mature’ specimen in that group who can contribute through their life experience.
64% of our Oceaneers are keen to be actively involved in building this community
20 out of the 35 Oceaneers (or 64%) want to meet up in person and share their passion for the Big Blue together.
Six Oceaneers are committed to a personal reduction journey, but simply don’t have the time and energy at the moment to meet up.
Another three are overseas, and the remaining three chose some in-between way of interacting!
Activities
Surfing is King – or rather Queen, given that women make up 70% of Oceaneers
We were interested to learn how our Oceaneers interact with the Ocean, and it wasn’t a huge surprise for us to learn that among all the Ocean-related activities out there, surfing is the most popular among our Oceaneers. Even more popular than sun-tanning at the beach – who would have thought!
Our Oceaneers also like to Snorkel, Swim, Kayak and SUP, and quite a few of them have obviously been inspired by Wim Hof’s cold water immersion (click this link to watch a funny encounter Kaspar had with him back in 2018 in Oz).
And then there are the activities that Oceaneers do a lot less, or have never tried before (2nd graph). We obviously see lots of potential here, especially in Kiteboarding (which was after all a big reason why Kaspar ended up in SA) and Foiling, which is taking the Berg by storm.
We also learned that most Oceaneers have never spear-fished – we know that quite a few are like Iggy and thus not interested in fish (or any other animal product, for that matter). But for the remaining group, this might be something we could try one day – especially given that our Ambassador James Taylor is such a passionate underwater hunter!
Oceaneers…
…like to hike!
This was a bit of a surprise. We asked our Oceaneers what activities they would enjoy doing during our meet-ups (or Salty Gatherings, as we call them). Hiking won here – after all, real Marine Iguanas feel at home both on land and in the water ;).
Muizies Beach Vibe ( = setting up our gazebo, handing out tasty plant-based food, surf/swim in-between) also ranks high, while only 5-6 Oceaneers would like to go on a (spear)-fishing mission – that’s enough for us though to organize something around that!
Food choices and Reduction Journey
Most Oceaneers munch like Iggy (= plant-based), closely followed by Ocean Otters and Manatees
First things first: Did you know that Manatees follow a vegetarian (but not Vegan) diet? We didn’t, until we researched marine animals that would represent certain diets… pretty sure you didn’t either.
So apart from 11 fully plant-based Oceaneers, we also have 9 conscious Omnivores (Otter) and 8 Vegetarians, and: Two great whites, which we classified as die-hard carnivores. They are especially welcome in our community!
Quite a few Oceaneers couldn’t identify with any of these boxes, and specified their food choices in more detail. That in itself provides us with a valuable insight – often people don’t like to be put into boxes, so these labels can sometimes be counterproductive.
35% of Oceaneers report a roaring success related to their reduction goals, and 94% met them halfway or more
This graph is for us the most important out of all of them, our raison d’etre. After all, our main aim is to inspire Ocean-lovers to reduce, and here we get to measure that.
Upon signing-up, our Oceaneers are given a list of 20+ reduction goals for inspiration, from which they can choose and/or add their own ones. They range from eating only Sassi-greenlisted species, to joining campaigns like Veganuary etc.
The numbers you see here are from the 2nd survey, taken at the end of the quarter, when our Oceaneers look back on the reduction goals they set themselves and report to what degree they’ve met them.
Social factors and availability make the journey hard for a lot of our Oceaneers
The majority of Oceaneers indicated that social pressure and availability of healthy and/or affordable alternatives are factors that make a reduction journey harder for them. This doesn’t come as a surprise to us either, those two factors seem to be quite common, and also overlap with our own personal experiences.
Two Oceaneers also reported that their bodies didn’t respond well. This is something we recommend to take seriously – we believe that only if we feel well & nourished can we go out and look after our planet and all its inhabitants!
Lots of Oceaneers feel fully supported by us – and yet there are opportunities to do more!
We love this feedback, especially with regards to producing more content and blogs, and to get nutritional experts/coaches more involved.
We already have Muriel aka ‘The Plantiful Coach‘ among our brand partners (she is also an Oceaneer), and she specializes on this kind of coaching.
And of course we like nothing more than community building – especially without Covid-restrictions!
Oceaneers
Oceaneers is a community-driven initiative created by two ocean lovers who wanted to inspire others to see that the biggest positive impact they could make to ocean sustainability was to change their food choices.
© 2018 Oceaneers.For.Life
CONTACT US
FOLLOW US