Ok so I heard like 5 reports in the last 2 weeks where an authoritative man generally over 40 tells us that “the consumer these days don’t care about sustainability. They care about taste and health.” Yea I get it, most plant-based products aren’t doing stellar in the market and I love it when people spend five figures for a report that says the same thing over and over again.
But though we like to tell people it doesn’t sell, there’s not much insights on why it doesn’t sell, and more importantly, there’s not much actionable insight on how to sell it better.
Marketing that involves pulling on values is risky and there are plenty of firms that will give you insights and deep dives on what works and doesn’t work. When it works, you make millions of dollars, when it fails, you get millions of tweets and youtube videos about how you missed the mark.
Whenever I mention the possibility of sustainability being a driver that should be stressed, people get dismissive, like they don’t even want to give it a shot. Like it’s not worth talking about, or they believe “normal people don’t get it”. I don’t think that’s true, but I do believe that we are not quite there yet to really hammer the gap.
Let’s deep dive, and get a better understanding of why sustainability doesn’t sell, and hopefully, how we can better communicate it.
Primary (Selfish) Values
Taste, health and cost are considered primary values, or values that really just affect our current selfish desire. We generally want to eat food that tastes good because it gives us tons of pleasure, we generally want to feel good and perhaps healthier and we generally would like to have more money by not spending as much.
These are pretty inherent in not just food, but everywhere. One marketer told me that the top 3 evergreen categories for selling products will always be what makes you have sex more, what makes you live longer and what makes you richer, and the same kind of applies to food in a roundabout way.
With this in mind, we’ve been saying in the industry “taste is king”, which is true, and marketing primes us into believing it so. Coke does a really good job showing the sun-in-your-face refreshing pop of a glass bottle of coke and Burger King does a really good job flipping meat on a sizzling grill with a hellish backdrop. Even if things already taste good, marketing enhances this. Same with health, not so much with cost, but that’s a different type of consumer.
We as scientists all know that we must make plant-based stuff taste better, be healthier and cost less. This is literally our job as product developers. Thanks for battering me with a stick about these values and say I need to do my job better. I really appreciate it.
Snide aside. Yes, we know inherently, these primary values will always win out. And though it fills out the healthy body of a product, what fills its soul?
Secondary (Moral) Values
I consider ethics, animal welfare, and sustainability secondary values. Though there are some that tether these to the values they associate with in buying food, generally, it’s not something that brings people a direct sharp pain of joy, but rather a humming feeling of enlightenment.
For example, Tony’s Chocolate is a damn good chocolate bar and it’s nice to know that I’m finding better labor by eating this. The chocolate makes us feel good, while the ethics part makes us feel nice.
Moral values are generally compensations for the price (and in some cases taste) as there is now justification for buying something of a higher value.
I don’t think alt-animal brands do a good job selling the secondary values enough and I think the biggest reason is that they are convincing investors that “in order to get more average people to buy our product, we can’t talk about these values, we have to focus on taste”. It doesn’t help that most investors don’t see the benefits of talking about secondary values either, even though most pitch decks have a sustainability slide on them.
If I had the playbook to sell on secondary values, I wouldn’t be a food scientist. I’d be very rich. I do think however, we are coming to a point where these moral values are affecting the livelihood of others. Especially sustainability. As more disasters affect people personally, there is a chance things may shift.
Warnings: Politicized Issues
This is a warning call, but as climate change gets more politicized, these will be a divisive split. It does not help that people who generally farm animals are generally conservative and generally work in rural towns who believe the city is taking their money and not helping them.
We’re getting there, it’s a problem and everyone who’s in the food tech or natural space bubble has to play a part in not widening the schism. There’s too much infighting already. As I travel around the world, I hear stories of the fruiting season not growing anything in the Malaysian jungle, or that Angkor Wat may not exist in a few years because the rain torrents and destroys the foundation, we’re going into some serious problems. The heat in California is enough to cause blackouts that make city people uncomfortable and farm people lose their salary.
A lot of businesses are upset, a lot of government is taking swift action. Probably too swift, as whenever they do cut emissions, there are issues with communicating this. Especially to farmers.
Climate change initiatives are a direct attack on profit from huge companies which in turn, already makes it politicized. What can we do?
Heroic Marketing
Captain Planet was probably the first environmental hero who made a statement. Most people make parodies of it now, but there are some shows that are bringing it back. I think it’s nice. I don’t think this made anyone want to be an environmentalist, but it’s nice that it wasn’t forgotten.
People like Bill Elilish, Harry Styles and Ariana Grande choose to be vegan for different reasons but they do mention that animal wellfare/sustainability is a big part of it. Reports (that no one wants to read) say that Black Americans are the fastest growing population of those who are vegan. This is mainly thanks to social media and also self-research showing that you’ll be healthier consuming these products. Primary and Secondary values at play.
Every year, we are getting more and more bad news about the weather. More businesses are being affected by climate change and the impact might be felt sooner than we think. Apparently, the cotton crop is the worse it’s ever been and will have repercussions on the textile market very soon.
The best part about human culture is that we believe in heroes to save the day. Not just Gilgamesh or Superman, but the police and firefighters that help our city. Your dad, and your favorite teacher can all be considered heroes.
We are already seeing political progress for the whole world about this. With America’s new climate bill, China’s new initiatives, and many other countries are actually looking into sustainability seriously. Because before it was a threat, now it’s a reality.
Prediction: As more incidences happen in the world and the more people are exposed to the various incidents that destroy our livelihood, the more people will look for sustainable options. And they will be influenced by their heroes as they look to do that.
Heroes help us as kids shape our moral compass. We know not to do bad things because our heroes tell us not to. Society has used the concept of creating heroes to show change, aspiration, and integrity and we can use heroes to show that sustainability really should be a focus.
Anyone can be a hero to inform the world that there are a lot of problems. You don’t have to be an authoritative man in his forties with gray hair to say so. For My Food Job Rocks, it’s a big part of why I got into the sustainability side. Because I hear stories of what’s going on in the business side and it makes me worried, but I also hear the people who intentionally want to make it better.
The world needs to be more heroic, and everyone can play their part. By being kinder, being helpful, and supporting each other, those are the fundamental building blocks to tackle the big problems in the world.