Impossible Foods’ First TV Commercial Will Challenge Meat Like Never Before 

This month, plant-based company Impossible Foods is launching its first television advertising campaign “We Are Meat.” The campaign—which will also run on digital and social media channels—features five short television commercials that feature the Impossible Burger sizzling on a grill. Created to target meat-eaters, the campaign aims to challenge the notion that meat must come exclusively from dead animals with a simple message: Impossible Burger is meat for meat lovers—made from plants. Currently, nine out of 10 consumers of the plant-based Impossible Burger are meat-eaters. 

“We are investing in a nationwide campaign to show Americans that Impossible meats deliver the whole delicious, meaty experience people crave—without the disastrous environmental toll of livestock,” Impossible Foods CEO and Founder Dr. Patrick O. Brown said. “We can replace yesterday’s ridiculous, animal-based technology with a categorically better way of transforming plants into meat. And we can do it with zero compromise on taste, nutrition, convenience, or family traditions.”

Impossible’s mission to replace animal products

In September 2020, the Impossible Burger was available at 150 grocery stores. Today, the plant-based burger is sold at approximately 20,000 grocery stores nationwide, including Costco, Trader Joe’s, Target, Walmart, and Kroger—which means 90 percent of Americans are within 10 minutes of an Impossible Burger. And customers are increasingly buying the plant-based burger at the expense of cow meat. In September 2020, 72 cents of every $1 spent on Impossible Burger came at the direct expense of animal products (a displacement rate of 72 percent). In March 2021, Impossible Burger’s displacement rate of animal products rose to 82 percent and the company’s goal is to raise that rate to 100 percent. 

To compete with beef on price, Impossible Foods has slashed the wholesale price of its plant-based products by 15 percent twice, once in March 2020 and again in January 2021. On the retail side, Impossible Foods is reducing the price of its Impossible Burgers by 20 percent to a new suggested retail price of $5.49 (down from $6.99) per pack of two with the aim of becoming more competitive with beef—the average price of which is currently $4.80 per pound. 

The company is also on a mission beyond replacing beef with plant-based meat. By 2035, Impossible Foods aims to make food animals obsolete by creating affordable and accessible plant-based versions of every animal product. In addition to its burger, Impossible Foods also offers plant-based pork and is currently working to develop “functional” plant-based milk to mimic its dairy-derived counterpart in terms of texture, taste, and functionality.