Fish and Stuff: Reacting to Social Media Buzz

The Radio 1 Breakfast Show, hosted by Greg James, airs Monday to Friday from 7am to 10:30am. It has an average of 4.2 million listeners daily, and regularly has slots where the general public can call in to take part in games, answer questions and be a part of segments.

At 8:24am on Thursday 23rd April 2026, one member of NOC staff phoned up the show to take part in a segment, and when asked what he did for work, he answered that he worked for the National Oceanography Centre. After this, one of the show's presenters asked 'is that like fish and stuff?'. This throw away comment led to Greg James following NOC on Instagram, and challenging listeners to grow the profile's follower count to 10,000 by the end of the show. If that target was achieved, Greg challenged NOC to add 'fish and stuff' to our bio. At the time, we had around 5,500 followers.

Once the correct Mark was identified internally, we put out a story on Instagram acknowledging the challenge set by Greg James, welcoming our new followers and pledging to change our bio if the profile reached the 10k milestone. We then adopted a slightly altered statement to acknowledge the show but to also dispel a longstanding misunderstanding of NOC:

More than Fish and Stuff.

We then set about taking Mark around our Southampton office, taking photos of him with the statement above in a range of different areas including in workshops, labs, offices and even dockside, along one of our research ships!

Mark posing around NOC with the 'more than fish and stuff' sign. He was a great sport throughout!

At around 9:56am, a few minutes before the show ended, Greg James announced that we had reached the 10,000 follower milestone, and the NOC bio was changed to include the phrase 'fish and stuff'. During the hours between Mark's call in and the end of the show, NOC was mentioned multiple times on a national radio station, which was a huge publicity boost. To further celebrate this event, we followed up with supporting content, including:

• 10k celebration post on Instagram.
• Further posts about the event on other social media channels, including Facebook and LinkedIn.
• Took advantage of our follower boost to publicise the upcoming Open Day.
• Presented our experience and learnings at the CommOcean2026 Conference, attended by 160 international ocean science communicators.

I was just pleased to be able to play my part in the spontaneous fun that ensued. The best bit is being able to embarrass my kids on a national scale; I don't think I can top that as a parent!

Mark Stinchcombe, Analytical Solutions Team Leader and Radio 1 Caller