The Impossible Burger Could Change the Meat Industry Forever
By: Ben Chapman
Tags: Health, Environment, Climate Change, News, Food

GOOD MARKETING

Maybe this section should be called, “Really, Really Good Digital Communications,” but that’s just not pithy enough for a title.

There’s no perfect method of digital marketing and there are no set templates to follow. Every brand makes mistakes and every brand will have strengths and weaknesses. But there is a stark difference between brands that use their media moments to uncreatively tell you to buy their product and those who use their voice to say something unique, human, and worth hearing.

Impossible Foods has one of the most effective modern marketing teams I’ve yet seen. It starts with their branding.

Impossible Foods Cover Photo

This is their Facebook cover photo; simultaneously retro and modern. As a company taking an old, beloved practice (burger eating), and completely reinventing it, this modern-retro intertwine tells a story. It says, “here is where we have been, and here is where we are going.”

Impossible Foods logo

Impossible’s logo uses the same color palette, and has the same strengths.

It’s unique, and it’s obvious. When I see it in the news or on my social media feed, I know from the color exactly who is speaking without having to read the lettering.

Impossible Foods is one of the few companies I follow on Twitter, and that’s because their team has learned a lesson that many other brands have missed: If you want to market yourself on social media, you have to be more than just a product.

Many-a-brand has fallen by the wayside thinking naïvely that social media is just another tool for pushing ads, company updates, and product announcements. Consumers quickly become bored with that content, and engagement — and therefore the audience reach — drops.

But Impossible Foods imbues humanness and personality throughout their online presence, reiterating their raison d’etre in every social media post. They don’t try to shift the conversation or push the reader somewhere they aren’t interested in going. That quickly becomes grating to customers. Instead, Impossible goes with the flow, injecting themselves into the conversation that is already happening.

For example, people like talking about celebrities and they like jokes, so when Conan O’Brien makes a joke about meat, Impossible is there with commentary.

People also like to hear what celebrities think about a product, so when endorsements come in, Impossible is ready. Here’s how they responded to Jordan Peele.

And then when Ellie Goulding quoted Peele’s tweet, Impossible was, yet again, ready with a clever response.

Even retired IndyCar racer Danica Patrick had kind things to say about the burger.

But it’s not just celebrities. The cute interactions that Impossible has with their everyday customers are endearing as well — and they’re examples of stellar social media marketing.

And another one…

At the risk of over-expounding on Impossible’s Twitter expertise, they also deserve credit for their more serious content. Impossible knows that their mission is not apolitical. They are radically upending a highly ingrained food system and they aren’t going to hide why.

Here they are making noise about climate change.

This messaging fits perfectly with their image as the sassy company that cares, and they execute it seamlessly.

When longer form content is needed, Impossible Foods isn’t afraid to get into the weeds, and sometimes the ring, via their Medium account. In one post from Rachel Conrad, Impossible’s Chief Communications Officer, the company delved into details on accusations that they were using dangerous amounts of glyphosate in their product. They came out swinging at a group called “Mom’s Across America,” writing:

“‘Moms Across America’ has escalated a year-long campaign against Impossible Foods to push its anti-vaccine, anti-GMO agenda to anyone gullible enough to listen. The group’s latest salvo is a pathetic ‘news release’ full of lies, anti-science rhetoric and ignorance of basic arithmetic.”

Later in the statement, Impossible called the group “charlatans,” and accused the group of hucksterism. They combined a defensive tack with an offensive retort, a genre of messaging usually reserved for political candidates.

While for many companies, the idea of using their communications staff to go beyond simply promoting a product is out of the ordinary, for Impossible, it seems par for the course.

They titled one Medium post, “7 earth-forward companies we know and love.” In it, they gave shoutouts to companies like Patagonia, Tesla, TerraCycle, and even Beyond Meat, who they called, “one of our many allies in the fight for a more sustainable global food system.”

But no digital communications effort is complete without a website. And Impossible Foods’ site is superb.

It has the same modern-yet-retro look as the rest of their brand, and it exudes a clear message of love and pride for their product. But by far, my favorite part of the website is the public media kit.

As a writer, this kit is a Godsend. It houses old press releases, mission statements, employee bios, and a gorgeous photo/video gallery. It also links to some high quality, comprehensive reports that detail the progress Impossible Foods has made in a particular year.

Here’s one paragraph from the 2018 report intro:

“We live on the best planet in the known universe — the only one known to support life. Our planet has air, water, breathtaking beauty and staggering biodiversity. It’s perfect. But fragile. We, and all future generations, depend on the integrity of all its diverse ecosystems to keep us alive.”

That’s splendid writing. It neatly encapsulates the bigger picture of the problem and it is a perfect lead-in to the marketer’s right hook in the next paragraph:

“We can’t take it for granted. We have to fight to protect Earth’s resources and life-sustaining biodiversity, even if that fight requires us to take on challenges that seem almost impossible today. That’s what we do every day at Impossible Foods.”

Impossible Foods says, “Here is the problem. We are the solution.” Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.

Why did Impossible devote so many resources into this media kit? Maybe for investors, maybe for reporters, maybe so that lowly bloggers like me would fawn over it to their few but steadfast followers. Whatever the reason, it has helped this ~350 employee company develop a streamlined, organized, coordinated message that they aren’t flinching from.

In sum, Impossible’s expert leveraging of social and digital media has given them not just a customer base, but a fan club.