by Barbara Lippert , Columnist
Source: www.mediapost.com, May 2024
Last night, in an unlikely media match, Impossible Foods debuted a ringing, tongue-in-cheek meat manifesto/anthem-type ad during E’s telecast of the red-carpet arrivals to the Met Gala.
Previously, at a party for the impossibly haute peeps attending the show, the company served Impossible burgers with brie and truffle aioli, and Impossible chicken nuggets dusted with edible flowers.
That’s only part of the hilarious, counterintuitive, high/low spin of the meat-from-plants brand.
On the heels of a recent rebrand, a 30-second spot called “The Walk” offers an over-the-top ode to the way meat historically made the man — and the beefy, hog-riding hombres who craved it.
It’s a fresh and funny take.
Using familiar beeflandic imagery, the ad targets serious meat-eaters while declaring that Impossible’s better-for-the-planet, cholesterol-free plant-meat is meat.
The spot features an oddly compelling Brawny Man-type hero sporting a meat-colored half-sleeved Ban-Lon shirt with brown pants (it’s a look), who lands in a time-honored backyard barbecue setting shouting “Listen up, America! Meat has problems!”
Ever forward-moving, he stomps through a few classic meat-based scenes of yore: the grilling party, a “Dog-Off” frankfurter-eating contest, plus a typical home kitchen and bistro-type joint, smashing the bone-and-gristle trad food he encounters (along with grabbing lots of red checkered tablecloths) to promote the notion that “plants can be meat.”
“It’s gonna take us, meat eaters, to solve meat’s problems,” he says, working himself up like a human steam table. He jumps on a counter, showing his loafers, announcing, “So when the world says we should eat less meat, we can turn plants into burgers and hotdogs and even meatballs!”
But the most straightforward line he delivers once he gets worked up is “Come on, let’s punch cholesterol in the face!”
With that, he alights to a barn, revs up his motorcycle, and speeds off, shouting the new, inspired tag line: “We’re solving the meat problem with more meat!”
Two shorter, product-focused spots show Brawny Man cooking nuggets and burgers. In the first, as the mustachioed one stares through the oven window at a tray of chicken nuggets he’s just put in, an announcer says, “We’re trying to save the planet with nuggets. Because we need the planet. And we also need nuggets.” Can’t argue with that logic.
The campaign comes from Impossible’s in-house marketing team, working with agency Erich and Kallman. Horizon media developed the out-of-the box placements, like the one last night with the haute couture crowd.
It’s a uniquely aggressive, turned-on-its-head take for former meat heads to accept and embrace the plant-based version. Viva las Vegans.
But the comedy is so weird and unexpected that we never feel like we’re being lectured to. It’s like meeting a brother from a better planet, but who still wants to bust out that time-honored question, “Quien es mas macho? “ Why, plant-based-meat, of course, because it punches cholesterol in the face.
