We wanted to help Vow, an unknown but highly innovative food tech brand, create a media earthquake to introduce cultured meat to the world as a sustainable and ethical alternative. Media research showed interest in cultured meat with niche journalists. Yet it didn’t resonate with the broad audience. Bringing the mammoth back to life as a meatball was a statement that turned a symbol of loss into a beacon of hope. Using only earned PR, we got Vow on the front of the Wall Street Journal and sparked a global conversation plus made people consider a more sustainable meat option.

One million species are at threat of extinction and food production is substantially to blame. 14.5% of all human-generated greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to meat production, with meat consumption resulting in barbaric conditions for animals. Meanwhile humanity keeps growing. By 2050, we'll need two planets to feed our population without radical changes.

But alternatives are coming. Cultured meat reduces environmental impact, is cruelty-free and preferable in taste and nutritional value. Yet only Singapore has legally approved cultured meat for commercial sale so far. A powerful meat industry lobby completed the challenge.

Research showed an interesting disconnect that could become an opportunity: cutting edge journalists were already hungry to write about cultured meat and its possibility to change an entire industry. We needed to come in with a bang to reach the broader public, making our goal very simple: to mainstream the idea of cultured meat.

The woolly mammoth is a symbol of loss and the drastic impact of climate change. The Mammoth Meatball is a ‘world’s first’ - by using innovative technology, we managed to turn the DNA from extinct wooly mammoth into a symbol of hope, illustrating the potential of eating ourselves out of extinction.

We sparked hope by making the seemingly impossible happen, turning what is no longer here into an icon of today: the meatball. An instantly recognizable dish in mammoth size for added impact. An image that would instantly go viral.

The idea is not designed to make people eat mammoth meat, but to make a statement that opens perspectives, discussions, and possibilities. Uniting complex innovations with an easy concept makes people question our today and consider alternatives for the future.

The aim was to make cultured meat a mainstream topic without any media budget. So we created an unmissable statement with a serious message. The future of food needs to be questioned and changed.

To go mass media we developed as many different angles as possible - appealing to all audiences, from BBC World service to CNN to Stephen Colbert and even kids TV - sparking a huge cultural shift.

That's why, we revealed the meatball to the press and the world in a conference at Nemo, Amsterdam's leading Science Museum. Instead of telling how we can change our future, we needed to show we can.

An exclusive ahead of the event with The Guardian made us build hype and momentum. The attention-grabbing hero image of the meatball rolled into pop culture sparking memes, podcasts, TikToks, excitement, and became an instant trending topic.

24 hours before the unveiling of the Mammoth Meatball, we invited The Guardian for an exclusive interview, which became our de facto press release to build momentum.

We took the opportunity of being invited to various shows to highlight the campaign to mass media publications and channels.

Local and global broadcasters such as Reuters, AP and AFP accepted the invitation to the reveal, ensuring that the story could speedily reach news channels globally. The momentum was enriched with a campaign website, case movie and an exhibition at Museum Boerhaave to tell an even broader story.

In 48 hours, half the world was debating its potential for future food production - whether as TikTok recipes for mammoth meatballs and spaghetti, or as discussions on radio and TV globally. Making Vow’s profile go stratospheric - from unknown Australian start-up to the front cover of the Wall Street Journal.

While only using PR, we got a 13 billion impressions in a matter of days. The campaign was covered by 12.500 written articles global with a 98,4% positive or neutral sentiment to them. Even making Vow go from a tiny start-up, to front page news for the Wall Street Journal, open the Steven Colbert Late Show and getting a 4’ coverage on John Leguiziamo’s Daily Show. Altogether, counting for an advertising value of $120.000.000. Being skyrocketed, the Mammoth Meatball found its way to social media feeds of people around the world. Thousands and thousands of social mentions including meme’s, tweets, vlogs and TIkToks were registered.

The world got to know cultured meat and changed its negative associations into anticipation to try. Our research (NL, Singapore, US, Australia and UK) showed that after seeing the campaign, 90% felt more informed on cultured meat and nearly 80% recognized the negative impact of the current meat industry on the environment and biodiversity loss.

70% said it made them stop and think about the type of food they eat and made them more likely to consider alternatives. Meanwhile, cultured meat got a positive boost making nearly 7/10 people perceiving it as being nutritious, safe, healthy and tasty. Leading to 3/4th of respondents who saw the campaign indicate cultured meat as an exciting, sustainable & realistic alternative for meat.

The result: a 95,7% increase in willingness to try cultured meat.

The call for eating less meat has never been louder. Yet the average global meat production has quadrupled since 1961 and is now at an all-time high.

A study in the Dutch market showed the perception of cultured meat is more negative when it comes to health, safety, naturalness and tastiness compared to meat, fish and plant based alternatives. This shows a big gap needs to be filled to increase the willingness for people to convert to cultured meat as part of their diet.

The inability to fulfill the expectations raised by the plant-based alternatives hype (Beyond Meat, Impossible) made skepticism about meat alternatives grow with investors, press and public opinion. Leading press titles refer to cultured meat as the ‘next hope’, but it needs to build its image on the exchange failure and backlash of the unhealthy character of those who went before.