When your product or brand is associated with a dramatic lifestyle change, it can be tough to diversify your audience and customers beyond the true believers. Of course, for a lot of brands, the enthusiasm of those fans can be enough to sustain. However, if your goal is to actually change the world, you need to broaden the tent to fit in as many people as possible.
Beyond Meat is now using the personal stories of celebrities to illustrate that eating plant-based meat products doesn’t mean you have to give up carnivorous tendencies altogether.
We hear from Snoop Dogg, Kevin Hart, WWE star Nikki Bella, NBA legend Chris Paul, actor Liza Koshy, among others—all in full testimonial mode—outlining their reasoning for a more plant-based diet, varying from climate change to family histories of stroke and heart disease to general health.
What they all have in common is that there is no silver-bullet answer—and cutting down on meat can be done in your own way, in your own time.
Between Hart and Bella, for example, we get subtle, gentle answers that address some of the lingering doubts around a plant-based diet and physical strength, but again, they’re sure to assure it’s all up to you.
“I was a person that felt like I needed to eat the meat to maintain strength, to maintain my size, or to maintain my level of health,” Hart says in his testimonial. “So when the information was presented that showed me that wasn’t the case, then it opened up a completely different realm of thinking and understanding.”
Bella points to growing up with two working parents, and the less-than-healthy rushed meals that went along with it, but says, “We’re so blessed now because convenience can be healthy now, and it can be plant based.”
CMO Stuart Kronauge says these stories are aimed to inspire action of any kind. “By making our storytelling efforts more personal, we want to inspire people to see that the positive choices we all make, no matter how small, can have a great impact on our personal health and the health of our planet,” she says.
The new work also complements the company’s Feed a Million+ program, launched in April, where investors, ambassadors, consumer superfans, and employees are asked to nominate causes, and Beyond Meat donates Beyond Burgers and Beyond Meat meals to those organizations through operational outposts and through a partnership with DoorDash. So far, they’ve donated more than 1 million nourishing meals to frontline workers and those in need.
While this campaign was planned and filmed pre-pandemic, Kronauge says the brand did have to reevaluate in the wake of the coronavirus crisis. “When the pandemic hit, we took a step back to see if the content still felt right,” she says, but ultimately stuck with it because “the role of food and health has never been more top of mind. This is a moment and we want to be part of a solution.”
Recognize your brand’s excellence by applying to this year’s Brands That Matter Awards before the early-rate deadline, May 3.
