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Permission Marketing Revisited: West Side Story or The Music Man? - Part 2

To see Part 1 of “Permission Marketing: West Side Story or The Music Man?” Click here

The 12th Annual Tony Awards took place at the Waldorf-Astoria Grand Ballroom on April 13, 1958. For most this is a night and event lost in time, with awards won by those mostly forgotten and attended by people who are now long nestled away in nursing homes. That night though, arguably the greatest American musical, West Side Story lost the 1958 Tony Award for best musical to The Music Man. West Side Story was unexpectedly jazzy, frenetic, violent and dark at a time when most Broadway productions were still doing the happy dance. In a way Seth Godin’s Permission Marketing released 18 years ago was very much the same. While there were other groundbreaking marketing books like Naomi Klein’s “No Logo” released that year, many other marketing books released in 1999 have faded into obscurity – their “marketing for the new millennium” themes as quaint and dated as “Livin La Vida Loca”. Permission Marketing, at least according to Forbes, was “widely loathed by the Direct Marketing Association of the era”. 

But what about Permission Marketing now? After all, it was written in a time before there was a smart phone for every person, and when Amazon and Google were taking their first wobbly steps toward world domination – does it stand up today? Here’s my take:

Yes.

I could sum this up with one word. “Amazon”. 

Seth basically told Jeff Bezos what to do in 1998 and Amazon listened!  “Once a month, in my email box, I should find a message about the four business books that Amazon.com thinks I should read. I’m willing to give Jeff and his people permission to make choices for me. In that sense, I am willing to subscribe to Amazon.com.”

While Amazon mostly an online book store in 1999, in the time since and with little direct interaction with their customers, they’ve built a massive business.  One key aspect of their marketing and ultimately their success is permission-based email marketing. Sending frequent emails based on your recent browsing history is a perfect example of permission marketing at work. To quote Godin: “When you genuinely want to connect with a friend, you wouldn’t send them a generic text. You’d send something personal, just for them, that is just from you.” Amazon does this beautifully and even in my own personal use I have made purchases due to their personalized browsing-inspired emails

As a result using principles outlined by Godin and following his advice from 1998, Amazon has succeeded in obtaining Intravenous Permission from millions of subscribers.

YouTube is another great example of where Godin’s techniques work amazingly well. And many companies, and YouTube Celebrities use the “subscribe” feature to build a permission-based engagement. Some like Six Pack Shortcuts, did an amazing job for first interrupting with a YouTube video pre-roll, then offering more free info, before moving up the ladder – ultimately obtaining Personal Permission through subscription and Intravenous Permission through monthly automatic replenishment on their website.

No.

My biggest critique with this book is that while it discusses at length what to do once you’ve obtained permission, it ultimately fails to outline just how to get noticed in the first place – how to break through the clutter and get seen without the aid of a multi-million dollar advertising budget.  Outside of using interruption marketing that is, which Godin mentions is a waste of time and money. Godin addresses this issue in other books, like Purple Cow but for the stand alone reader of Permission Marketing, Godin fails to provide a solution outside of partaking in the very thing this book is out to destroy.  

Author Jamie Alan Belanger summed this particular oddity up best: “This makes some portions of the book feel like I'm being taught by the underpants gnomes on South Park (Step 1: Advertise. Step 2: ..? Step 3: Profit!)”

In addition, Godin explains the principles of using permission marketing both in the offline world and online world, but he doesn't describe in detail how to best achieve permission marketing using e-mail. Unfortunately the way email marketing is often carried out today is still interruption marketing. "Spray and pray" still describes many email marketing campaigns.

Godin recognized that interruption will always be needed for customer acquisition and when starting a dialogue with potential customers in the first place, but many email campaigns go straight from situation to selling.

I think many marketers skip steps in Godin’s levels of permission marketing because it takes too much time. Companies expect results, they want an ROI and naturally, they want it now. As society’s attention span has continued to shorten since 1999, permission marketing is not going to deliver dramatic enough growth overnight. It’s something that needs to be nurtured over months and potentially even years – and this conflicts with society’s need for instant gratification. The invention of the smart phone has in some ways perverted Permission Marketing as well. The personal messages received every single day on the average person’s smartphone, while permission-based, likely surpass the number of traditional ads that consumers were exposed to every day in the 1990’s when Godin was writing his book. In my opinion, much of what would have been considered permission marketing in 1999, is now interruption marketing. 

For example, I recently opted into @londonreal with my email so that I could watch a documentary they created about bodybuilder Dorian Yates. A classic tactic described in Permission Marketing. The problem was their constant follow up communications following the Godin playbook with personalized emails directing me to behind the scenes cuts from the documentary I had watched, but had since moved on from soon became interruption marketing and I unsubscribed. Was it just them? No, but my phone looks like the image above and they were a victim of numbers and simply being not quite interesting enough to keep my attention in a sea of push notifications.

In this way, I think every consumer has a limit to the number of opt-in messages they can tolerate in a day – even if they’re volunteering to hear from you - making even relevant over-communications pollution. As Godin noted, “As clutter has increased, advertisers have responded by increasing clutter. And as with pollution, because no one owns the problem, no one is working very hard to solve it.” What was once weekly emails has now turned into daily emails, and hourly push notifications,  mobile reminders, and text messages.

Verdict

Despite the critique above, Permission Marketing still stands up today. Like West Side Story, even though the clothes, cars and hairstyles have changed, the underlying message and in this case, marketing tactics still remain relevant today. In some ways, this book was a little bit of a nostalgia trip (he references Palm Pilots, Lycos, and beepers) – and you’ll need to look past the mentions and discussions of companies that are now extinct to find the core message. When you do that though, you’ll see that you can apply the underlying principles of Permission Marketing to nearly any business – even in 2017.

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Permission Marketing Revisited: West Side Story or The Music Man?

West Side Story is a groundbreaking musical which debuted on Broadway in 1957 and became a celebrated film in 1961. It depicts fierce gang rivalry between young Puerto Ricans and Polish-Americans on the streets of New York City, and centers on a doomed romance based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

After more than 50 years, West Side Story maintains its relevance. The issues of race and ethnicity are so prevalent in the national news; the number of hate crimes and the police profiling of minorities are issues which are part of our daily lives and something that we are reminded of constantly when watching this musical.  

Meanwhile The Music Man, a musical about a con man who convinces the townsfolk that the new pool table in the billiard hall will bring nothing but trouble and instead cons them into buying horns is about as well known as any other song by The Knack other than “My Sharona”. In other words, it has a core fanbase who keep the musical alive (after all, it infamously beat "West Side" for the 1957 Tony Award for best musical), but it’s virtually irrelevant by comparison today - better known among millennials as the subject of parodies on the Simpsons and Family Guy.

So after a few weeks I’ve finally managed to read Seth Godin’s 1999 marketing classic Permission Marketing. Why would I choose this older book over countless numbers of groundbreaking new marketing books – including modern books by Godin? It’s simple, I really wanted to see if Godin is the visionary he’s made out to be. This is the book that broke him to the mainstream and is the reason why he’s been considered a must-read amongst modern marketers. I wanted to read it and see if this book was timeless and relevant today like West Side Story or find out if perhaps his ideas had aged like Meredith Willson’s musical – appealing to marketers in 1999, but decidedly corny and out of touch in 2017.

Permission Marketing in a Nutshell

The basic premise of Godin’s book suggests that communications requested by customers have a greater impact and higher response rates than the many unsolicited communications which bombard us each day through print, mail and TV, and that these permission-based communications are “anticipated, personal and relevant”. Godin believes that the effectiveness of marketing directly corresponds to the level of permission the customer has given to receive the communication. The level of permission we have - combined with knowledge of customer and relevance of messaging - allows us to deliver 'anticipated, personal and relevant' messages to people who 'actually want to receive them.'

How Does Permission Marketing Work?

In short, rather than create an mass media TV, print  or internet ad whose sole purpose is to get people to buy when it’s likely they have never even heard of you before, and pushing it out to them when they’re not looking for it (“Interruption Marketing”),  you ask them for permission to send them more information (a free report, a free sample, a list of “common exercise mistakes” – to reference my industry). We don't start by asking for sales at first connection. We earn the right, over time, by developing our knowledge of the customer and increasing the relevance of our communication.

So in that first bit of information you send them, you ask for permission to send them more (as a newsletter, a subscription to your YouTube channel or for a follow on social media) , and then after you build up a relationship in this way over time, then you can start selling.

It must be said that in this context, “Permission” is not necessarily “legal permission”. Sure you might opt into a newsletter, or send a complaint which puts you on a mailing list, but according to Seth “real permission” is “if you stop showing up, people complain, they ask where you went.” Permission marketing isn’t just about ensuring that you obey the law – it’s a set of common sense ideals which help to make you a better marketer.

  Seth Godin’s Five Levels of Permission Marketing

This is called the “Permission Ladder”, and the goal of marketers is to move them from strangers to friends to customers. Basically, you start at “Situation” and with each piece of communication, you work your way up to “Intravenous”. The theory being that as trust grows, responsibility grows and profits grow.

1. Intravenous Permission

This is the ultimate level of permission. The brand who has this level of permission can make buying decisions on behalf of the customer. This includes signing them up to “auto ship” or automatic replenishment programs where they’re automatically billed and shipped products on a reoccurring basis. A magazine subscription is another example.

 2. Points/Loyalty Permission

Air-miles and Petro points are examples of this level of permission. People opt-in to these programs because of the benefits to them and in return they offer their personal data to allow companies to track their purchase history and to send them related offers and information.

 3. Personal Permission

When we have a personal relationship, we have an ongoing dialogue. We have permission to ask more personal questions, recommend other products, even offer products or services on ‘approval’

 4. Brand trust

This is the level of trust that old-school or traditional marketing aspires to.  Companies use brand trust to create line extensions, or cross and up sell other products.

 5. Situation

This is the most basic form of permission. A customer has initiated an interaction by purchasing a product or even just by making an inquiry. Reaching out on Facebook or commenting on your YouTube video with a question is an example of this. Asking someone if they’d like fries with their burger is probably the most used situational permission scenario in history.

Anything other brand communication outside of the 5 levels above is considered Spam (TV ads, radio ads, junk mail, unsolicited email, sponsored ads on Facebook from pages you don’t follow).

Does this work in 2017? Click here to see Part Two to find out my thoughts! In the meantime, enjoy Family Guy’s  The Music Man parody.

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My wife used to drive a Mazda. Great little car. Drove it to Lake Placid once and have fond memories of it. Professionally, Mazda’s marketing has always stood out to me, and recently I got fed a sponsored post on Facebook which to me exemplified exactly the end result of turning strangers into friends. 

See I just bought a new car, and during my research phase car companies have been plastering my Facebook feed with ads and boosted posts non-stop. Eventually I leased a Volkswagen. Being mostly German I’ve always wanted a German car, and the Golf was 2015′s Motor Trend Car of the Year and Car and Driver continues to pick it at one of their annual 10 best. Some vehicles are just you, and after countless hours in other cars, this one was just “me”. I can’t explain it. I can afford more, bigger, flashier, faster - but those cars all felt like I was driving a rental. This felt like mine before I even signed the papers. Back on topic - my point is none of the Facebook ads I’ve seen since last October did one little thing to sway my choice of cars. Why? Most of the ads are the same, touting deals, finance rates, monthly payments, new features and the like. They interrupted my Facebook feed and I ignored them. But Mazda, rather than interrupt my Facebook feed with yet another “0%” financing ad, caught my eye yesterday with this ad.

The text reads “Remember the days when it was just you and your car? This Singles Awareness Day, remember your first love. What was your first Mazda?” “Of course I do!”, I said, and proceeded to interact with the ad. Unsurprisingly there are hundreds of people posting their first car pictures and stories and I probably spent a good 10 minutes reading some of them.  Afterwards, I was thinking “Wow, what a great ad, I’m not even looking for a new car anymore, but I’m already looking to see what new posts come up on this ad and what else the social media team at Mazda will come up with!” This, my dear reader, is what happens when you turn strangers into friends. Like Godin says, permission is like dating. You don’t start by asking for the sale at first impression. You earn the right, over time, bit by bit - and Mazda is off to a good start.

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Is Ontario’s New $30,000 Logo Worth It?

According to recent news, taxpayers spent $30,000 on the Ontario 150 anniversary logo that’s being drawn and quartered by “critics”. But is the criticism deserved? Not really, and here’s why.

John St. is one of my favorite agencies. In 1996 when I graduated from Durham College’s Advertising program, my goal at the time was to be like Bill Bernbach (or Donald Draper) and become and Ad Man - coming up with amazing ideas for massive companies and seeing my work in TV commercials, print ads, activations and even end caps in stores. Life in the ad industry wasn’t quite as glamorous for me though, and I spent months buying radio ad space for various agency clients. It bored me to death and the commute/daily grind wore me down, so I moved onto other things - and while in a roundabout way I’m still in advertising (social media), I never ended up drinking Martinis for lunch with other ad guys at John St., McCann or JWT like I dreamed of all those years ago.

One of my classmates, however, kept at it and worked her way up through various agencies, and she brought to my attention today that the new logo for Ontario 150 is from John St. So why do I like these guys? Well, if you’ve seen their “Kids Read Mean Tweets” campaign for The Canadian Safe School Network, you’ll see why their work stands out to me. 

According to CTV, this logo was approved last April, but the cost came out recently;  and has since been reported rather unbiasedly by media channels. Yes, the same media who frequently also take shots are our Liberal Government. They’re saying that this logo cost us taxpayers $30,000.

An unpopular politician spending taxpayer money on something creative? It’s no surprise the logo is getting roasted.

Not a “Great” Logo

Is it a great logo? In my opinion — not overly, but I’ll say that with the caveat that truly great logos are few and far between. This one is just fine. It’s one of those logos you’d pass on the street, see and not think twice about. It’s inoffensive, simple, playful, and yes, youthful. It’s far better than the blobs used for the 2015 Pan-Am Games and light years better than the London 2012 logo, which while scary, I’ll admit, grew on me as the games wore on, and for all intents and purposes was a success from a merchandising perspective 5 years ago — even if it cost $625,000 for all the work on it.

Based on social media though, you’d think the Ontario 150 logo was designed by Donald Trump or maybe had a secret swastika or Crying Jordan  embedded in it. Twitter, radio and newspapers are going off about it. “It’s not clear, it’s not clean — it’s not balanced.”  That’s Richard Powers, the national academic director at the Rotman School of Management talking to the Toronto Star. I guess the  Toronto School of Art was unavailable for comment? I think Richard is undoubtedly a smart man, but if you look at any Olympic logo, major event logo and even some company logos in the modern era, clean, clear and balanced is decidedly old fashioned and ultimately boring and forgettable. No agency hangs it hat on rehashing simple 1960′s designs for basic logos and if they did they’re out of business. Companies don’t want basic anymore - they want edgy and leading edge. They want something that is memorable and stands out in a sea of sameness. In my opinion, Richard's synopsis was a mail-it-in-critique that I found hard to believe was used in a major newspaper. It’s almost like the Star asked everyone in advertising to slam it, they all declined to out of professional courtesy, so they tried to quote the next best thing - an “academic”.

Criticism is Money-Oriented

Most of us regular people on social media are calling it childish, weird and most disturbing of all “costly”.  Yes, the logo is getting bashed most, not for it’s basic design, but for it’s reported price tag — a mere $30,000. In other words, John St. was paid $30,000 for the initial design, 42 separate digital pieces, five separate, fully animated logos, a complete branding guide, the trademarking costs, and the agency hours to produce it all. That’s a far cry from what the media, who is touting the logo itself as costing $30,000, is reporting. Of course, if the media reported all the details or even the truth, they’d never have a story to begin with. Overall, the government is spending $100 million on the province’s 150th celebrations and infrastructure projects — so 0.03% of that is spent on this logo and everyone is losing their minds. Is it taking away Canadian jobs? Not at all, John St. is a Canadian agency based in Montreal and Toronto. So while it wasn’t outsourced to an American, British or worse, a Chinese design firm, it also It wasn’t doodled by some unpopular politicians kid either. 

Nope, even though the Government is supporting Ontario and Canadian workers here, like the John St. staff above, most Ontarians are up in arms about the the cost - one that works out to of a mere $0.002 for each of the 14 million of them. So while they waste hundreds a year on water for their lawns, overpay for gas for thirsty SUVs made in Mexico or the United States, and spend billions on Chinese-made goods; many want their $0.002 back because Kathleen Wynne gave it to Canadians to make a logo for other Canadians. 

That’s what we care about these days: Media-induced hysteria over $0.002.

Bad Logo - Or Change-Resistant Public?

We all know that the public is generally fickle and often conservative. In other words they resist change and resist “weird”. Even the popular new Raptors logo was panned my some when it first launched - or at least it turned off those at the @torontostar. Who, now that I think about it, seem to have a thing for hating on new logos.

I feel bad for the people who worked on this at John St. and those at Queen’s Park.  This logo was clearly aimed at Ontario’s youth and I would bet dollars to donuts that it scored well in the 17-20 demographic - which is likely why it was picked. 

Stacking Public Perception Against the Logo

In the CTV street interviews, we saw mostly middle-aged men and women “shocked” at the cost and baffled at the logo itself. This is the same demographic who mostly doesn’t understand how to build a Spotify playlist or figure out what Snapchat is used for. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s like asking your grandmother review an Echo Dot after have her try to order a pizza with it. She’s going to hate it — but that doesn’t make the Echo Dot any less of an outstanding or innovative product.

I’ve heard some alternative ideas floating around like having school kids design it, or having an open entry for everyone. And they sound good in theory - “hey why not let Jane Average submit her idea and donate the $30,000 to a charity!”  And of course lots of would-be designers are bringing forth their own designs they claim to have whipped up in 5 minutes. It’s too bad that most of them look like it too. 

Why not a UGC Logo?

In my experience user generated content (UGC) for logos, packaging and marketing material is hit and miss  - it sounds like a great way to get cheap labor and ideas, but practical application is always underwhelming, and unless there is significant motivation to build something really good (like say a $30,000 prize?), the entries usually are far below what a trained student or professional would create. Also, the attention span of people for these contests is fleeting, meaning ads and promotional materials would need to be created to keep awareness high. In the end the government would have likely ended up spending far more than $30,000 just to advertise the fact that they’re having a contest to design a logo in the first place. I’m not even touching on the legal aspects, intellectual property searches on entries, and unbiased judging considerations - or their costs. It’s also worthy to note that it’s how embarrassments like the hot-at-the-time “Raptors” team name came about in the 1990′s (runners up were “Bobcats” and get this, “Dragons”). For every great user-created idea like Skydome, there’s a “Boaty McBoatface”.

No, sometimes these things are best left to professionals. In this case professionals who created a universally-acclaimed anti-cyberbullying campaign, but are now the subject of the same online bullying their campaign spoke out against. The irony is rich.

Happy Anniversary Ontario.

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I just received a fresh copy of Seth’s classic advertising (dare I say it?) Bible, and I’m looking forward to giving it a read for my class at George Brown College in Toronto. I’ll give you my thoughts on how it’s aged since Seth wrote it in the late 1990′s. Before Zuckerberg, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and even Myspace - marketers online acted like their “Mad Men” forefathers - bombarding us with interruption marketing.  Pop ups, spam emails, banner ads, click bait, link farms, more spam emails, even bots on ICQ - all designed to take you away from what you were interested in to force you to see their marketing message, product or service. Then in 1999, Seth Godin unleashed Permission Marketing, and the principles contained within  seem to have become standard issue for today’s email, mobile, and social media marketers. I’m hoping to re-evaluate this book 16 years later and see what nuggets I can still pull out of it to apply to marketing in 2017.    

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Muscle Up with Fish Oil

Here’s an article I wrote in 2014 that was never published (or edited), but I came across it today and thought that someone might as well get some use out of it. Enjoy!  

We spend countless hours debating the merits of various pre-workouts, proteins, recovery products and pills – not to mention the continuous quest for the next great stimulant or musclebuilding “secret” ingredient. Yet there is one ingredient that is so overlooked and so undervalued that most lifters either don’t take it, or if they do take it, they take the bare bones cheapest product they can find so they can feel good about having a nutritional base “covered off”.  While most bodybuilders can rattle off 4 or 5 different types of creatine and their benefits, few have such vast knowledge of this supplement, and most only a vague notion of what it can do in the body.That product is fish oil. Yes, boring old fish oil. And yet boring old fish oil can actually be a difference-maker in your supplement arsenal, and even see you adding pounds of new muscle!

The Power of Fish

First let’s go back for a quick refresher of EFA 101. The two primary essential fatty acids (EFA's) are omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acid. Why essential? They're considered essential because the body can't produce them and therefore must come from food.For our purposes, we’re going to concentrate on omega-3 fatty acids (most of you will get plenty of omega-6 in your diet). Let’s focus in particular on docohexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). EPA and DHA are omega-3 fatty acids that are converted into hormone-like substances called prostaglandins, and they influence thousands of gene expressions that involve fat metabolism, cell inflammation, and neuro-signaling substances. 

Though they’re not considered essential (alpha linoleic acid or ALA is the required omega-3), DHA and EPA are the superstar omega-3s. Both EPA and DHA are considered long-chain forms of omega-3, while ALA is the short-chain form. This is one reason why EPA and DHA stand above ALA. For starters body needs to convert the short-chain omega-3s to a long-chain version in order to make use of it. This process however, is not efficient, and less than 5% of ALA gets converted to EPA (JT, 2002), and less than 0.5% of ALA is converted to DHA (Plourde M, 2007).This means that consuming flax, a common source of ALA omega-3, will not fuel your daily EPA/DHA requirements.

A typical North American diet provides approximately 2-3 g/day of ALA from mixed plant /animal sources whereas EPA and DHA are consumed at levels of only around 50 mg and 80 mg/day, respectively, for an overall combined DHA/EPA intake per person of approximately 130-150 mg/day. This, my friends, is far below the levels required for any athletic benefits. 

Benefits of Fish Oil

So what are the benefits of DHA and EPA and why should you devote a percentage of your supplement budget to these to omega-3s? Make no mistake, there are an array of health benefits that are not covered here that make taking fish oil just as important for overall health as it is for body composition; but for our purposes we’re going to focus on the benefits that are most specific to bodybuilders or other athletes looking to add muscle and improve body composition. 

1. Fish Oil Boosts Protein Synthesis

Some of the newest and most exciting research on fish oil recently has been centered on its anabolic potential. This is important, as it helps give more credence to recommendation that fish oil be one day be held in the same regard as supplement staples like creatine, beta-alanine and even HMB.In a 2011 study, subjects supplementing for 8 weeks with 4 g per day of fish oil providing a daily dose of 1.86 g EPA and 1.5 g DHA, significantly increased muscle protein synthesis in response to eating protein and carbohydrate. (Smith GI,  2011)In 2013 researchers designed experiments with full grown C2C12 muscle cells from mice and exposed the cells in test tubes to 50 micromols of the fish fatty acids DHA and EPA, and stimulated anabolism with leucine. They measured the synthesis and breakdown of muscle cell protein and discovered 5 percent higher muscle building and 22 percent lower muscle breakdown in the muscle cells that had been exposed to EPA.What both these studies show is that fish oil promotes muscle growth by not only inhibiting muscle catabolism, but also by stimulating muscle protein synthesis. 

If you’re an older athlete there’s good news for you too, the same research team as the 2011 study, conducted a second study using the same protocol (1.86 g EPA and 1.5 g DHA for 8 weeks). Once again the fish oil supplementation significantly increased the muscle protein synthesis response to amino acids and insulin! (Smith GI, 2011). It’s interesting to note that the anabolic effects of fish oils prompted the NCAA to ban the distribution of fish oil supplements by major colleges to athletes. While student athletes can freely buy fish oil on their own, it’s not permissible for an institution to provide its student-athletes with fish oil. The rationale being that fish oils may give an unfair advantage to the more better funded institutions who could afford to give this supplement to athletes.

2. Fish Oil Enhances Body Composition and Promotes Fat Loss

Body compositional changes are always welcome amongst athletes and bodybuilders in particular. Losing fat while not losing weight overall is advantageous in sports where having more lean bodyweight is an advantage as well.In 2010 a study performed at Gettysburg College 22 test subjects were given a placebo containing safflower oil for six weeks, and another 22 subjects received 4 capsules each containing 1 g fish oil every day. Each capsule contained 600 mg EPA and 200 mg DHA. The subjects took 2 capsules at breakfast, and 2 with their evening meal. The safflower group gained a small amount of fat mass, and did not gain any muscle mass, however the fish oil group gained a pound of lean body mass and lost about the same amount of fat mass! 

Researchers also found that there was significant reduction in salivary cortisol when the group consumed fish oil. (Noreen EE,  2010) Cortisol is a catabolic hormone that degrades muscle, leads to fat gain and has a host of other detrimental effects at chronically elevated levels. The mechanism of action of fish oil for fat loss seems to be related to its ability to improve insulin sensitivity which improves fat burning and inhibits fat storage. There are both human and animal studies that show fish fatty acids oxidise in the body into substances that activate PPAR proteins. PPAR is a mitochondrial activator found in muscle. Activating PPAR boosts cells' burning of fatty acids and their insulin sensitivity.

3. Reduction of Inflammation 

This one is tricky, as recent research has shown that anti-inflammatory drugs can put a stop to healing and muscle growth and it’s become common knowledge that the acute post-exercise inflammatory process plays a key role in muscular adaptations to resistance training. Earlier I told you that you likely get all the Omega-6 fatty acids you need in your diet already. This is because since the onset of the industrial revolution, North American consumption of omega-6 fats has steadily increased. This is due to the advent of the modern vegetable oil industry and also to the increased use of cereal grains as feed for domestic livestock which has altered the fatty acid profile of meat that we consume. Frequently consumed foods and oils like safflower and sunflower oils, corn, peanuts, soybeans, and sesame are all high in omega-6 fatty acids, but practically void of omega-3s. Generally this puts our omega-6 intake considerably higher than what humans evolved to need.So why is this bad? On a high level, omega-6 is pro-inflammatory and a diet with a lot of omega-6 and not much omega-3 will increase inflammation, potentially leading to chronic inflammation. 

Chronic inflammation leads to a whole host of issues – from joint stiffness and overall muscle aches and pain to, at its most serious level, heart disease or insulin resistance. That’s not to say that omega-6 fatty acids are bad, far from it, however it’s the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids that you should be in tune to, and the problem with low ratios of omega-3 to omega-6 is the lack of omega-3, not so much the omega-6. What it all comes down to is that getting the optimal amount of omega-3s DHA and EPA in your diet will give you numerous anti-inflammatory benefits including speeding detoxification of waste products, inflammatory biomarkers and  improved cellular health, which improves the building of muscle. And as long as you’re consuming enough cold-water fish and other seafood, and/or high quality fish oil supplements, whole food sources of omega-6 shouldn’t increase inflammation. 

If you’re worried about Omega-3s blocking the acute post-exercise inflammatory process, simply avoid taking your daily fish oil dosage around the time you train. If you train in the morning, take fish oil with your evening meal, and if you training at night, take your fish oil with breakfast.4. May Speed Recovery Improving or speeding up recovery allows you train more often, and quite simply training more frequently will yield more growth cycles and allow you to get bigger faster. And fish oil may be able to help here too. In 2007, researchers at Inserm in France discovered after a two-month-long experiment with 27 women consuming 3 fish oil capsules a day that amongst other things, the women showed significant decreases in plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) in the blood. (Kabir M, Dec 2007) PAI-1 is commonly referred to as the “heart attack protein”, however PAI-1 also blocks muscle recovery by blocking urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA). uPA promotes muscle regeneration by activating hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), which, in turn, stimulates proliferation of myoblasts required for regeneration.

Animal research on mice in 2005 determined that damaged muscles of mice who were genetically modified without uPA recover more slowly, and the muscles of the mice who were genetically modified and could not manufacture PAI-1 recovered faster. They also found are more macrophages (immune system cells) in the muscles of the mice without PAI-1 than in the muscles of the other mice. (Koh TJ, 2005)Future research is required to study the effects of reduced PAI-1 in athletes however fish oil’s ability to decrease PAI-1 is good news for bodybuilders who are on a constant search for supplement that would allow them to recover faster and improve training frequency.

Consuming Omega-3s

EPA and DHA are found naturally in cold-water, fatty fish (sardines, salmon, mackerel), but are not as abundant in low-fat fish like tuna and tilapia, which incidentally are two fish that bodybuilders consume frequently. These are great low-fat protein sources, but if you’re wolfing down tuna and tilapia thinking you’re getting all the omega-3s you need, you’re really not. 

Ultimately the best way to get EPA and DHA is either naturally or through high quality fish oil supplements. There are benefits to both methods. Actual fish contain higher nutrient content (ie: selenium), but fish oil supplements are more cost effective and are of higher potency. For example to get 1.5g of DHA per day you’d need to eat around 8.5 ounces of wild salmon.

When to Take Fish Oil

Fish oil supplements have a more limited fatty acid profile than whole fish, meaning that taken on an empty stomach by themselves they may not adequately activate the process of fat absorption required to assimilate the fatty acids.As a result, you should always take your fish oil supplements with a healthy meal that contains fat. In fact one study on a pharmaceutical grade fish oil demonstrated 8 times the absorption of a 4g fish oil dose with a meal that was high in fat. (Michael H.  Davidson MD, 2011)

Buying Fish Oil - Factors to Consider 

The envelope on fish oil research continues to be pushed and they’re quickly becoming a must-have in the supplement arsenal of serious athletes. When searching for a fish oil supplement though, don’t just go for the cheapest formula. There are a number of variables to be aware of when shopping for a fish oil:

Purity: Many fish oil supplements claim they meet international standards for mercury, cadmium, lead, and PCB, dioxins and other contaminants. Do some quick research and double check the one you’re buying is up to par.

Potency: Look for fish oil with a high omega-3 concentration (75% or higher) with the highest amount of EPA and DHA per capsule. 

Coating: Select a supplement that offers enteric coated capsules. These supplements have a thick coating that protects them from stomach acids, so they pass into the colon without breaking apart.

Cost: Don’t just buy the cheapest formula available! Choose the best formula you can afford.  

Conclusion

Outside of its physique-improving ability, fish oil has numerous benefits for athletes and non-athletes alike, and as new science emerges, it’s clear that fish oil offers incredible benefits to those who are looking to put on lean muscle mass and improve their body composition.Even if you don’t feel you can benefit from taking the amounts described above, you should either add fresh fish to your diet or buy choose a high quality supplement and do your best make them a key part of your daily regimen.