Media
milkshake 3
ACT LIKE A
COMPANY
ack in the early 2000s, Bart Van Olphen quit his
job at Lucas Cartons’ Michelin-star restaurant
in Paris to pursue a new and more engaging
passion. From his evenings walking the Au Pied
de Couchon and grabbing dinner at the renowned
Les Halles restaurant, he became enamored with
how people loved to eat at their favorite seafood
eateries. Slowly, his romance with the sea grew.
Each morning, he would head down to the harbor
as the local fishermen hauled in their scores. But as
he spent more and more time in the small fishing
communities, Van Olphen was shocked to learn how
the fish were being treated. Essentially operating
factories on the water, the fishery companies were
not concerned with much more than tomorrow.
So Van Olphen decided to do something about
it. Co-founding Fish Tales, a Netherlands-based
company committed to sustainable fishing, he
immersed himself in righting the wrongs in his new
world. At the heart of his efforts was a blog, Fish
Tales, which covered everything and anything related to fish and the sea. Every Friday became “Fishy
Friday,” a content-driven initiative that hit a vein with those who shared his passion. The content not only
inspired a series of bestselling books and cookbooks, but also helped build the Fish Tales community.
Andrew Davis believes there is much to learn from Van Olphen’s story—one that he says probably
does not get as much attention as it should for being the perfect blueprint for how content builds trust,
THE NEW
APPROACH
TO BUILDING
COMMUNITY
“SINCE CONTENT
IS THE SPOKEN
LANGUAGE
FOR BUILDING
RELATIONSHIPS,
MORE BRANDS
SHOULD ACT
LIKE MEDIA
COMPANIES.”
— DEBBIE QAQISH,
CHIEF STRATEGY OFFICER,
THE PEDOWTIZ GROUP
December 2021