• by Danielle Oster , November 2, 2023

Beyond Meat is pinning its hopes for a better 2024 in part on a campaign launched last month promoting Beyond Steak, starring Rizwan Manji (“Schitt’s Creek”) and featuring a voiceover from Chris Parnell (“Archer,” “Rick & Morty”).

“This Changes Everything” shows Manji's response to learning that Beyond Steak is a healthier alternative that actually tastes good: “Everything bad is good for me!” From there, things escalate quickly, and soon he's decided it's a good idea to do his own stunts. (His rooftop jump comes as a bit of a shock, and could be more than a bit off-putting for those who only tune in for the end of the ad).

“This Changes Everything” targets omnivorous eaters with dual selling points: a “better for you” alternative to their favorite meat that still tastes good.

“The consumer for Beyond Meat is a flexitarian and eats animal as well as plant-based protein,” Beyond Meat Senior Vice President of Brand Marketing Akerho “AK” Oghoghomeh told Marketing Daily, adding that the company kept running into consumers asking “Does it actually taste good?”  Beyond Meat thinks it has a game changer in a product that both “legitimately tastes like steak” and has a heart-healthy certification from the American Heart Association.

“We’re not comparing ourselves to kale salads, or quinoa, or any other health foods that are out there,” he added. “I don't want consumers to think that we’re a health food company or this is a health food product. This is a ‘better for you’ product.”

To bring to life its message about the taste of Beyond Steak, Beyond Meat looked for a partner that could help craft a "bold" campaign. The brand tasked Atlanta-based agency Chemistry with the job, because in Oghoghomeh’s past experiences working with them, he found the agency to “have an edge."

Chemistry Chief Creative Officer Chris Breen explained that the ad's approach was meant to grab attention for health-based claims that are easy to tune out. “We never wanted to do anything that took ourselves too seriously,” he said, while alluding to “way crazier scenarios” in the ideation process compared to what eventually got developed.

Oghoghomeh described the new campaign as “complementary to” the previous “There’s Goodness Here” effort, which focused on the farmers Beyond Meat works with to source its ingredients.

Collectively, the campaigns function to combat what Beyond Meat views as “brand misperceptions” shaped by views of plant-based meat alternatives as “highly processed foods,” as well as negative news coverage targeting Beyond Meat in particular.

“This Changes Everything” also comes on the heels of a recent story in VegNews entitled “Beyond Meat Reduces Heart Disease Risk, According to Stanford Study” about a 2020 Stanford Study that noted funding from Beyond Meat. The company clarified it provides a general grant to Stanford and has no input on individual studies. But when asked if it had invested in a PR campaign to promote the study, a representative responded that Beyond Meat is "committed to taking action by supporting trusted, scientific and evidence-based research on the benefits" of shifting from animal to plant-based meat.

There are high stakes for Beyond Meat’s recent ad push, which comes as the company released this week’s earnings report, in which it again reduced its annual earnings estimate while also announcing comprehensive cost-cutting measures. Those measures included laying off nearly 20% of its non-production workforce, according to Reuters, a move which follows a larger round of layoffs around a year earlier.