Upside talks to chickens in a language they can understand

The "lab grown" meat brand takes out a full page ad by Rethink to deliver good news to birds.

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A California based cultivated meat is boasting that it’s a brand that has a significant “upside” for chickens, as its name suggests.

Upside completed its first pre-market consultation with the FDA for its chicken grown from stem cells ? what might be known more commonly as “lab-grown” meat. In partnership with Rethink, the brand commemorated the significant milestone by directly addressing chickens in their own language through a full page open letter in the New York Times that is now the centrepiece of a wider campaign.

“Bawk bawk, ba-kawk bawk” translates to “Dear chickens of the world,” and the missive goes on to describe the means by which Upside cultivates meat in a vessel. it says that “a whole new future is around the corner,” one in which people continue to eat meat as they did before, but with far fewer birds paying the price for it.

“As a brand in a totally new product category, Upside told us they wanted to announce their FDA approval in a way that would simultaneously make them stand out while still giving them a chance to properly introduce who they are and what they do,” says Mike Dubrick, chief creative officer for Rethink. “An open letter felt like a great way to do all of that explaining, and addressing it to chickens, in chicken language, felt like the way to get it noticed.”

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According to Dubrick, there’s a big education piece when it comes to cultivated meat. So having a QR code that led to an English translation online not only felt like a way to deliver that information with a smile, but allowed the agency to gather e-mail newsletter sign-ups. The campaign launch yielded a 1,100% increase in web traffic to the company?s website.

When it comes to a print-centric campaign, according to Dubrick, it’s like any other medium. “When the idea is right and it?s executed well, it can be as powerful as anything else,” he says.

Upside cultivated chicken will be available following USDA inspection and label approval, an important step on the road to bringing cultivated chicken to the market in the stateside. In January, Berkeley-based Upside purchased a Wisconsin lab grown seafood company, Cultured Decadence, although the terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In 2021, Canada produced around 1.3 million metric tons of chicken, the most consumed animal meat protein in the country.

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