Meatless Mondays

I recently finished up a campaign assignment for school. The assignment was to think of an issue or cause important to you and create an ad/awareness campaign for it. I chose the topic of the extremely eco-unfriendly beef industry.

Yes, I am a vegetarian, however, this campaign wasn't about trying to get others to stop eating meat. My goal concepting this campaign was simply to raise awareness of the amount of damage the beef industry has on the world through land usage, water usage and gas production. And being that my target audience was meat eaters, I had to think of a way to get their attention. One path has been taken by PETA, the in-your-face "Meat is Murder" idea. I don't believe that is effective on anyone who doesn't already think that.

I was referred to a website called Meatless Monday which is a movement attempting to simply REDUCE the amount of meat eaten to better aid human health and the health of the planet overall. This is where my whole campaign took flight. I partnered up Meatless Monday and the North American Vegetarian Society (since I think most people won't even listen to what PETA has to say at this point) and created the following campaign:


To best reach the demographic, a guerrilla campaign concept placing maroon "beef shirts" packaged similarly to products in the meat isle as a free give-away and attention getter.


Faux label to further blend in with the meat products on top of clear saranwrap. Copy gives reader a explanation of Meatless Mondays and their mission as well as some brief facts on why the beef industry is harmful.


Detail of the T-Bone tag.


Shirt among the beef products. Can you spot it? Hahah (it's a bit of a Where's Waldo!) Thanks to my roommate for being my accomplice on this photo shoot mission to Kroger.


To reach parts of our demographic that eat meat but may not be shopping at the grocer or are younger, Meatless Monday teams up with American Apparel to produce limited time "Beef Shirts" sold at their retail locations. This is a print ad featuring "The Beef Shirt" to be run in magazines like Nylon and Print.


Deli isle pull for further demographic-contact. An item normally thrown away is now easily able to slip in the consumer's pocket so they may visit the website when they're home.


It's important when attempting to change behavioral patterns to give that person a helpful alternative. Here is a small book of meatless recipes that are all fairly easy to make. This book is available to order through MeatlessMonday.com for free and shipped through the mail.


A simple layout, loose illustrations and hand-done typography keep Meatless Mondays friendly in the mind of the meat eater.



There were two other ads in this campaign that I will revisit during winter break. I think the booklet could use some work as well, color tweaks to relate a little better to the heavy maroon feeling of the beef shirt is something I'm considering. As always, I love feedback and critique!