Cannes Lions

Old Farm Animals

AKQA BLOOM, Miami / NOTCO / 2023

Awards:

1 Shortlisted Cannes Lions
Case Film
Presentation Image
Supporting Images

Overview

Entries

Credits

Overview

Background

Most people have never seen farm animals grow to a mature age because they only live a fraction of their natural lives in the food industry. In nature, cows, pigs, and chickens can live up to 48, 23, and 20 years, respectively, but in today's global food system, they may only live months or days. NotCo, a global food tech company, has developed an A.I., called Giuseppe, that is able to recreate the flavor and texture of animal products using only plants. With the advancement of generative art A.I., NotCo can now use A.I. to educate people on the disparity between the lifespans of animals in nature and those in the conventional food system. The global campaign was deployed across six countries, translated to three languages and had a budget of under 100k, and follows the company's announcement that it has become a Certified B Corporation.

Idea

The campaign aims to highlight the disparity between the lifespans of animals raised in nature and those in the meat industry. It challenges the audience to reflect on if they have ever seen such animals at an old age, leading to the realization that these older animals are so rare to come across that these images had to be created using A.I. The use of A.I. is relevant to the concept and the brand, as all their plant-based foods are produced using this technology. These A.I. generated images give the audience an idea of how these animals should look like in nature, demonstrating how a plant-based diet benefits not only us and the planet but also these animals who deserve to live a full life. And how A.I. can assist in making this all possible.

Strategy

Over the past 50 years, meat production has more than tripled. The world now produces more than 340 million tonnes each year most of which is consumed by communities across the Americas, strategically targeted and heavily marketed to by the meat industry. Our campaign, produced in 3 languages and deployed in cities across 6 countries targeted millennials, who consider the environment 25% more often than other generations when engaging with advertisements and purchasing products. Our campaign leveraged social planning often deployed by meat product producers. By doing so, we catalyzed emotional behavior change across digital channels within our core audience: targets such as influential millennial women/mothers, who control 85 percent of household purchases, with spending power of $2 trillion. Additionally, channels chosen for the campaign presence were determined by this audience: Instagram leading as 40% of millennial women say it’s the best place online for brands to advertise to them.

Execution

A combination of A.I. tools such as Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and ChatGPT was used to create hyper-realistic portraits and time-lapses that showed farm animals' natural appearance and lifespans, contrasting them with their food industry lives. The A.I. tools were trained in pre-production, and stills and time-lapses were made in production. We trained the tools to achieve the same aesthetics of photography, such as a Leica Noctilux lens with shallow depth of field, contour light, and even the sentiment of these animals at the end of a happy life. ChatGPT was used to achieve the best prompts to generate images of animals at different ages on Midjourney. The visuals use Midjourney design elements in the headline, which refers to the prompt used to create the images. Stable diffusion was used to turn an average of 300 fully A.I.-generated stills into dynamic time-lapses. The global campaign was shared across eight countries until the submission date.

Outcome

The campaign was deployed across six countries and translated into three languages, using a mix of OOH, Audio ads on the SXM podcast network, PR, and owned social media. The campaign generated 430 million media impressions. The campaign's content resonated with consumers, as evidenced by the high number of interactions and comments. NotCo saw significant engagement on its owned media channels, with consumers demonstrating increased loyalty towards the brand. The campaign’s CPM was 12 times more effective than previous NotCo campaigns. The brand also experienced a 30% increase in sales**. The campaign positively impacted brand perception and highlighted NotCo's commitment to being a Certified B Corporation. Overall, the campaign successfully conveyed its message about the disparity between animal lifespans in nature and those in the conventional food industry, generating strong results across multiple metrics.

*Measurable consumer sales pre/post campaign vs control

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