SEAMaine
NEMA, in partnership with Merritt Carey, built the communications and media relations platform for SEA Maine, the statewide roadmap initiative for Maine's marine living resource economy.
SEA Maine started in 2019. By the time NEMA came on in early 2023, the initiative's sub-committees had produced multiple reports and findings, across a roadmap effort with a long list of stakeholders, consultants, and partners. All of it needed one lead story the press would actually run.
NEMA and Merritt Carey chose the economic impact report as that story. The team drafted the press release, moved it through the initiative's approval channels, and worked with Mainebiz to place the first piece. A one-page economic impact infographic gave partners something to put in front of people when they talked about the study. The scope also covered a series of workforce videos aimed at attracting talent to the sector. Merritt sat on the SEA Maine steering committee and had been with the initiative since it began in 2019.
The first press release on the economic impact study reached an audience of more than 120,000 in Maine and produced several earned media pieces, with interest running well past the initial Mainebiz story. The study itself put the Maine seafood sector at $3.2 billion in economic output, 33,000 jobs statewide, and $449 million in tax revenue.