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Alt protein marketing: What do industry experts say?

Creating a new category requires marketing support to drive consumer demand. You may have a great product, but that won’t matter until consumers know about it. Marketing, as a business function, has the power to make or break businesses. It determines how a consumer views the product, the company, and the category. To support that process, we spoke to leading industry experts who shared their thoughts on what to consider when marketing products in this sector.

If you try and sell to everyone, you’re selling to no one

Identify your target market

Andrew D. Ive, founder of Big Idea Ventures, advises having a specific target audience—people who are on board with what the company does. Understand well what drives them and what resonates best with them. “Companies are often scared to be tightly targeted in terms of who they’re selling to. You can’t sell to everyone from 18 to 30 because there’s no such thing. People between 18 and 30 have many different tastes and preferences.”

Cultivated chicken from GOOD Meat

What’s in a name? Sales!

Steer away from ‘vegan’ or ‘vegetarian’ something

Michael Fox, co-founder of mushroom-meat startup Fable Food, shares that they spent a lot of marketing effort on menu research and insights to understand naming conventions and decide what to call their products. “We found the same results that other research bodies have found. Using the words ‘vegan’ or ‘vegetarian’ means the dish performs poorly in sales because meat-eaters will generally skip over it.” 

People prefer having taste-oriented names, something that depicts the flavourfulness of the product. If you’re doing a barbecue product, maybe call it a Texas barbecue burger. “Removing the word ‘vegan’ from one of our product’s name and using a more taste-driven word like ‘umami’ increased that product’s sales by five times.” 

Avoid force-fitting the brand name into the product name

“People often make split-second decisions when ordering food in a restaurant. It’s important to use words that can give an idea of what the food item’s experience will be like in the consumer’s mind.” Fox says they don’t try to force the Fable brand into the menu title. They’ve experienced that their product actually performs worse if they call it ‘Fable pulled shiitake,’ compared to just ‘pulled shiitake.’ “People see the word Fable, but they don’t know what that is, and move to the next item. We obviously want to build brand recognition. But even more so, we want the product to sell, be successful, and stay on the menu.”

Curate messaging to be more inclusive and positive

Avoid negative marketing – “We are not this.”

Maarten Geraets, former managing director of alternative proteins at Thai Union, advises against the ‘marketing-by-negatives’ commonly used in the industry today. “I think we need to talk in a much more positive way about our products rather than saying that, unlike real chicken, our product is more sustainable, our product does not contain XYZ, or our product is not this. We need to move away from just selling a mimic chicken because it doesn’t sound very exciting.”

Ive from Big Idea Ventures concurs, saying that if a company has a great product, the best thing they can do from a marketing standpoint is figure out how to get it into a million people’s mouths as quickly as possible. “Build a positive and inclusive brand, promoting the product for what it’s bringing to the table rather than what it’s trying to replace. You’re not trying to make people feel bad about their previous decisions, you’re trying to make them feel good about the decision they’re making right now to buy you.” He adds that it is about owning the category and owning one’s reasons as to why the company is here and what value it brings.

Mushroom patty from Green Rebel Foods

Marketing around the ‘environment’ may not be ideal

Nick Cooney, managing partner of Lever VC, cautions that advertising focused on environmental messaging may do more to dissuade purchase than encourage it. “It really pigeonholes a product set or company within the vegan space or something similar to a premium and upscale vibe.”

Position for occasions

Simon Newstead, founding partner of Better Bite Ventures, says that instead of choosing messaging that generically focuses on plant-based as an alternative to animal products, appealing to different occasions is a smarter strategy. One of their portfolio companies in India, Shaka Harry, markets their products for everyday occasions. “For example, here is the product for a snacking occasion or breakfast. Here is the product for a gathering with friends on a night occasion. People usually think about what they should have for breakfast tomorrow. Adopting this approach is a good move.”

Geraets agrees, “When consumers walk into the supermarket, they have multiple protein solutions to choose from. They are going to make the purchase depending on the event or occasion and, of course, the price.”

Be smart about the marketing channels

Get noticed on social media

Cooney says that social media dynamics are very different from print and television media. Companies that have done well produce creative content that is clever and humorous.

Newstead shares the example of EatKinda, a New Zealand-based ice cream company that uses cauliflower as the main ingredient. “EatKinda caught attention for their video showing the fun behind the scenes of turning cauliflower into really creamy ice cream. That’s a way to build up interest and credibility for low marketing costs. They’ve launched into the biggest supermarket chain in the country and are planning to expand overseas.”

It’s food, so get people to taste it through sampling

Fox shares that people love Fable’s product when they taste it, but getting them to order it in the first place can often be difficult. “In-store sampling for novel products works really well. People can try the product, like it, and buy it. It works well in restaurants. It is a good use of marketing resources and energy.”

Geraets concurs on the importance of sampling activities for building a new category in food. It is important to drive opportunities for people to taste the product, including in channels like universities and school canteens.

Strategic endorsements are costly, but they work

Newstead advises that a strategic endorsement can often elevate the brand. They have seen cases of some brands in India where a high-profile endorsement moved the needle in terms of market adoption, not just for the company, but also for plant-based foods overall.

Last, but not least – be diligent with your marketing spend

Marketing is needed, but don’t go overboard before ensuring the fundamentals are in place

Overspending on marketing is unwise when startups are not selling products yet, don’t have their processes streamlined, or have yet to secure their supply chain. Jolene Lum, former head of business development at Nurasa, says, “This time and money is better spent on ensuring that your products are within reach when you are ready to go to market. If you don’t think about that early on, all the awareness you built can be destroyed very quickly.”

Want to take a deeper dive into GFI APAC’s business insights? Check out our latest report on Southeast Asian consumer perceptions, or reach out to our team of experts at APAC@gfi.org.

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