The Vow brand

Vow is a cultured meat company based in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 2019, it began making cultured meat from pork cells but has since ventured into rabbit, kangaroo and cultured Japanese quail.

The cultured meat category

In 2023, Vow become the first cell-based meat player in Australia to begin the regulatory approval process with Food Standards Australia and New Zealand in the hopes of delivering cultured quail meat to the local market, and to Singapore where cultured meat has been approved for longer.

Both Vow and another Australian start-up, Magic Foods, were looking for further venture capital investment but lack of regulatory approval was holding them back.

A MEATY CHALLENGE…

Meat production is a leading contributor to global warming. Livestock contribute between 15% and 19% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Alternatives deliver emission reduction at scale.

…WITH A SOLUTION THAT WASN’T FAMOUS

Cultured meat is a strong alternative, but it wasn’t approved for consumption anywhere except Singapore. No-one could try it, no-one really talked about it.

WHAT ISN’T RENOWNED, DOESN’T GET REGULATED

Without regulatory approval, cultured meat wouldn’t fulfil its potential. For “novel” food categories, regulators prioritise areas that can demonstrate fertile ground for new food technologies to land.

Regulators don’t go looking for what sounds interesting. They examine new methods that have sown the seeds of public attention.

SO VOW FACED A COMPOUNDED CHALLENGE

No ability to properly taste test, unable to sell any product, and a lot of funding to raise…Vow vowed to transform cultured meat by making it a hot-bed issue that would demand attention and legislation.

THE ANSWER WAS TO CREATE FAME ON FAST-FORWARD.

The answer wasn’t cultured meat, but fame.

Fame to create the public awareness to get regulators interested, that would in time enable actual product launches.

MEATING THE CHALLENGE

We needed fame fast, but we wouldn’t get it by being just another meat substitute.

We had to create something new, something with instant impact and the ripples to last.

Something so different that it would pique consumer curiosity, but familiar enough that they wouldn’t be put off, and would understand how it could fit their life.

WE TOOK A JOURNEY THROUGH SCIENCE AND SNACKS

T-Rex burger, Dodo Nuggets, we considered them all. We had to balance fame potential with available genetic information. The T-Rex and the Dodo couldn’t deliver, but (due to its cellular make-up) the Mammoth could.

SO THE MIGHTY MAMMOTH MET THE HUMBLE MEATBALL

Everyone knows meatballs. They’re part of culture, familiar, homely, safe. From USA to Australia to Singapore, while we make them differently, meatballs are a thing.

Everyone also knows Mammoths, the intriguing woolly behemoth that’s…well…extinct. Or so we thought…

COMBINATION TO BUILD CONVERSATION

Our ambition was to build conversation through our Mammoth Meatball combo, with three aims:

- Generate the PR and fame that piques public interest.

- Use public clamor to pique regulatory interest.

- Build further insights and data, to support and inform product development.

It’s a rare campaign that brings an extinct animal back and appears at SXSW. This was the creative impact for Mammoth Meatball: enough science to build trust, enough meatball wholesomeness to be understood and enough alchemy to build intrigue – together delivering a mammoth helping of fame.

Phase 1: Unveiling the Meatball. After three years of research and technological innovation, the Mammoth Meatball was unveiled in Science Museum Nemo in Amsterdam. Next to global press there were bioengineers, representatives of the wider cultured meat industry and regulators present at the launch that sparked a global discussion – led by VOW.

Phase 2: Making it Mammoth. We created a detailed PR plan engineered to fuel the discussion about our unique meatball. We pitted meat lovers against climate warriors, the familiar against the exotic, to make sure the world would be intrigued by this solution. And intrigued they were. Mammoth Meatball went everywhere, from the science pages to SXSW. It was discussed in global news outlets, dinner tables and classrooms. The fact that no-one could actually taste it was a PR dream, not a pitfall, further whipping up demand via X [then Twitter]. All this created fertile ground for regulatory approval.

MAMMOTH MEATBALL DROVE IMPACT

The ripple effect built from the public, to regulators, to industry.

RIPPLE ONE: PIQUE PUBLIC INTEREST

A meatball you couldn’t eat? That helped not hindered fame, with Mammoth Meatball earning 13 billion Media Impressions and $120m in Media value.

The unique combination of meatball and mammoth created global cultural power from morning TV to SXSW to scientific publications.

Mammoth Meatball increased willingness to try cultured meat by a…mammoth 95.7%.

RIPPLE TWO: DRIVE REGULATORY ACTION

We know that public discourse is vital to driving action. For example, Food Frontier’s MD Dr Simon Eassom, said “Public confidence…is a vital step in gaining acceptance.”

Since the launch of the Mammoth Meatball, approval for cultured meat has increased from just one market to seven giving regulatory approval for the production, tasting or sale of cultured meat. Vow had its first commercial product launch in Singapore in April 2024.

RIPPLE THREE: INDUSTRY INTEREST

Mammoth Meatball supported VOW’s application for regulatory approval in Singapore and Australia, but went far beyond, with regulatory change globally encouraging more companies to invest and innovate.

By creating a groundswell of fame, The Mammoth Meatball accelerated regulatory approvals everywhere, and changed an industry. Possibly even a future.