French alt-meat maker La Vie is well-known for its laugh-out-loud marketing moves. disconnect your brand from the soy protein isolates and textured vegetable protein of the 1970s or from the raft of questionable plant-based alt-meats that have flooded grocery stores in the past 10 years. But you can make ’em laugh. And when you’re trying to sell a product that’s deeply polarizing and con-nected in pop culture with dour militant vegans, going for the joke is an easy way A This is an ad for meat eaters s a plant-based meat startup, you can’t easily to generate mass market appeal. “For many, plant-based is still serious, self-righteous,” Chris White, founder of the food brand design agency This Way Up, has said. “Humor plays an important role in breaking down the stigmas, opening the door to wider audiences.” As a differentiator and attention-getter, many plant-based alt-meat brands — like La Vie, THIS and Planted — have developed an irreverent, playful and sometimes slightly La Vie The number of state funerals alt-protein company THIS staged for pork bacon when it released its own, plant-based version. 1 rebellious brand voice, poking fun at them-selves, each other and the conventional meat sector as well as med-dling governments that might try (and fail) to regulate their products into oblivion. The resulting tongue-in-cheeky ad campaigns are deeply weird and deeply inspired by groan-worthy Dad jokes. And they’re honestly funny: In February 2023, UK plant-based chicken maker VFC put up a series of billboards featuring comments the company had re-ceived from anti-veg-an trolls. A popular favorite: “I’d rather stick a wasp up my bum than eat VFC.” In December 2023, Impossible Foods dropped a Hallmark-style rom com trailer promoting its new plant-based hot dogs. The male lead is a competitive eater, and the trailer kicked off “12 days of holi-dogs.” In July 2024, legacy alt-meat maker Field Roast rolled out ads with Charli XCX promoting “Brat C M Y CM MY CY CMY K 6 Alt-Meat May 2025
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