Unveiled in the Netherlands last week (no, it wasn’t an April Fools’ prank), the meatball was created from the DNA of the long-extinct woolly mammoth and its closest living relative, the African elephant. It was produced, from Korsten’s idea, by the Australian food-tech company Vow as a buzzy way to educate people about lab-grown meat (also known as cultured or cultivated meat), which is Vow’s business.
As a marketing stunt, it was a huge success, with earned media mentions everywhere from business magazines to late-night talk shows. All of which left Korsten, when Ad Age caught up with him at week’s end, giddy to see the conversation happening globally around a topic that’s long fascinated him—how lab-grown meat could ease the climate crisis and provide consumers with more nutritious and tastier foods options, and how Vow is taking a unique approach in the space.
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A more exotic path
“It’s been quite a journey,” said Korsten, who’s now global chief creative officer of Wunderman Thompson. (The campaign is credited to Wunderman Thompson Benelux, with a production assist from the agency’s Sydney office.) “Of the 150 companies in this space, 149 are doing things the same way—trying to replicate beef, pork and chicken. Vow wants to go for something more exotic.”
The reason is simple. If you replicate beef, pork or chicken, Korsten said, people will naturally compare it to the original—and may be disappointed. (“The best people will say is, ‘This almost tastes like chicken,’” he said.) But if you experiment with proteins from more far-flung animal sources, you can develop textures, flavors and combinations that are new and exciting—and potentially even better-tasting.
“It’s a missed opportunity not to take advantage of the potential of cultivated meat to revolutionize the way we think about food,” said James Ryall, chief scientific officer at Vow. “Rather than simply replicating existing products, this technology offers us the opportunity to create something truly unique and better.”
from Digital Marketing Education https://ift.tt/AM3Y2Qn
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