Vegan food brand channels Banksy with radical, political marketing: Can we change our food system?

There is no doubt that Banksy, the world-famous anonymous street artist, is a talented artist. But when you think about their work, you probably think less about what the work is and more about what the work is trying to say. From Girl with Balloons to Love in the Air, most of Banksy’s works are political, poignant, and poignant. With each provocative piece, the artist has something to say. And in the vegan food industry, more and more brands seem to be taking this thought-provoking approach to promoting their products.

Just recently, vegan meat brand This pulled a controversial stunt at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. The brand has placed a replica of one of the artist’s best works, a self-portrait, in the museum, but only in this version, he wears a Trump-style red hat with the slogan “Make plant-based great again.” He was wearing a .

“The fake Van Gogh at the Van Gogh Museum has survived,” Andy Schovel, co-founder of the brand, said in a statement. “As it sat for almost an hour before being removed, our calculations mean that thousands of people saw our masterpiece.” This is how vegan brands play pranks on museums. Second time. In 2022, he also exhibited his own version of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in the gallery.

Schauvel said the recent stunt commemorated Dutch National Week Without Meat and Dairy, an initiative created by a foundation of the same name that encourages people across the Netherlands to abstain from animal products for a week. It is said that The organization aims to raise awareness of the immense impact that livestock farming has on the planet.

Ravi

The need for impactful vegan marketing campaigns is greater than ever

According to the United Nations, livestock production accounts for 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. By the way, aviation accounts for 2% of him. Livestock farming is also a major cause of deforestation and habitat destruction. Over the past six years, more than 800 million trees have been cut down in the Amazon rainforest to produce Brazilian beef for the world’s food supply, research suggests.

With all this in mind, it’s no wonder plant-based brands have resorted to provocative, Banksy-esque marketing tactics. The situation is serious. In 2022, researchers at the University of Bonn in Germany concluded that for the sake of the planet, the world’s richest countries need to reduce their meat consumption by at least 75 percent.

“If all humans consumed as much meat as Europeans and North Americans, international climate change targets would certainly not be met and many ecological The system will collapse.”

This isn’t the only provocative marketing approach. In 2022, French vegan bacon brand La Vie rolled out 2,000 pink billboards across the country commenting on the UK’s political and economic situation ahead of its launch in the UK.

The billboard read: “Britain’s latest and greatest scammer. Sorry, Boris,” a reference to the country’s controversial former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and “Sure, our parents lived through the property boom.” But we have vegan bacon that tastes like bacon.” This, of course, refers to the ongoing housing and cost of living crisis in the UK.

Popular vegan milk brand Oatly is also no stranger to making big claims in its marketing campaigns. In 2022, the brand launched an ad campaign showing children smuggling oat milk to school. The ad aimed to increase support for the inclusion of plant-based beverages in the European Union’s school feeding programme.

“The future of our children and grandchildren depends on the choices we make today,” Cecilia McAreavey, director of communications and sustainable food at Oatly, said at the time. “The IPCC recognizes that more policies are needed to support the transition to plant-based diets to combat climate change. We can’t continue with subsidies that don’t recognize the need.”

Daring Foods

Addressing public health issues

In the United States, vegan chicken brand Daring once ran a full-page ad in the New York Times with the headline “Chicken is Broken.” The campaign addressed not only the industry’s carbon footprint, but also harmful runoff, groundwater contamination, and unethical factory farming.

Today, more than 99 percent of the meat products on store shelves in the United States are made from factory-farmed animals. This is not just an environmental issue, but also a public health issue.

Several experts have criticized industrialized agricultural practices for the overuse of antibiotics. Antibiotics are given to animals to prevent the spread of disease, but they can ultimately promote devastating antibiotic resistance in humans. There is also a risk that other pandemic-causing viruses will emerge from factory farms.

In 2021, South African scientists warned that the expansion of intensive livestock farming was creating a “perfect breeding ground” for disease. “The mortality rate of the avian influenza virus is about 60 to 65 percent,” researcher Robert Bragg said at the time. “Human-to-human transmission has not yet occurred. If this virus were to cause human-to-human transmission, we could be in for a really serious pandemic.”

So while vegan brands need to offer products that taste great and are innovative, it’s increasingly clear that their marketing can and should also be a vehicle for genuine advocacy and political action. It is becoming. Like Banksy’s street art, the campaign will become more provocative with each passing year as the climate situation becomes more urgent.

Charlotte is a writer and editor based in sunny Southsea on England’s south coast.