There’s a final cheeky message at the end of the video: “Plonts—it won’t save the planet, but it probably won’t hurt.”
Down to clown
Following the plant-based ad playbook—which often leans into pastoral images—would not have worked for Plonts, per Tavel. The Silicon Valley-based brand is made from soybeans and microbes via a fermentation process, so “all that field and farmer imagery is not true to the business.”
As for the Plonts crew, they were down to clown, Tavel said, given that the target audience is young, urban, early adopters, flexitarians, rabid foodies and other trendsetters.
“The biggest risk a new brand faces is that nobody cares,” according to Plonts co-founder Josh Moser. “So many sustainable food brands speak so earnestly about the very real problems they are working to solve, and we felt like people were starting to tire of that.”
Plonts intends to “talk about serious things by saying unserious things,” Moser added. “That drove us to do an anti-ad of sorts, parodying typical mission-driven branding and the pressure it places on consumers.”
Selling sustainability
As a nascent company, Plonts is diving into a segment that’s already crowded and becoming more so with a mix of newbies and legacy players like Follow Your Heart, Violife, Babybel, Miyoko’s, Climax Foods and Perfect Day, among others.
Standing out won’t be easy, but going the comedy route “is a clever move, given the heavy tone and politicization of climate in this year’s U.S. presidential election,” Jennifer Stojkovic, founder of the influential Vegan Women Summit, told ADWEEK.
In the broader plant-based space, brands like Beyond Meat have built campaigns around “plate to planet” themes, with mixed to poor results. While consumers rank environmental protection as a priority, that’s generally not how they make their purchasing decisions, especially as inflation rages and plant-based food typically costs more than its animal-based counterparts.
A top buying motivator continues to be taste, with established brands like Impossible Foods, Daiya and others crafting their marketing messages accordingly (and sometimes going for the funny bone in the process).
“It remains to be seen if the sustainability approach has stickiness in the U.S., as much of the previous success of this messaging from brands like Oatly was in the European market,” Stojkovic said.
