WHEN AN ALTERNATIVE CEASES TO BE AN ALTERNATIVE. WHY PLANT-BASED MARKETING SHOULD INSPIRE THE REST OF THE MARKET

3. 11. 2025 | 12 min read World Vegan Day is now behind us — and today it serves as a reminder not only of growing interest in sustainability, but also of a transformation in the language of advertising itself. Plant-based brands have shown that communication does not need to be built on guilt or activism. It is far more effective to talk about taste, habit, and choice. Campaigns that only recently targeted a narrow group of the already convinced have become fully fledged examples of modern brand communication. What they have in common is simplicity, a positive tone, and the ability to translate an ethical issue into an everyday context. Plant-based products no longer represent an alternative, but a new way of thinking about marketing itself. An alternative becomes a vision of the future In 2020, the American company Beyond Meat decided to completely overhaul its existing marketing strategy. The goal was to promote plant-based meat as a product suitable for mainstream consumers. This also involved a shift away from a narrative based on moralising (“you must”) toward one emphasising choice (“what if”). The result was the company’s first-ever nationwide television commercial, “What If We All Go Beyond?”, which aired in the United States on 3 August 2020 on Spectrum SportsNet during a game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Utah Jazz.