Not So Happy Animals

Today, NotCo, in collaboration with creative agency GUT Mexico City, debuted a new campaign titled “Not So Happy Animals,” which focuses on raising awareness and promoting the adoption of a plant-based diet with a creative use of juxtaposition.

“Not So Happy Animals” follows the satirical stories of several animals – a chicken, a cow, a pig, and more, cheerily singing about their sad and tragic lifes, while being marketed and pictured as happy. Towards the end of the video, the campaign provides a call-to-action that starting today, anyone in the US can go to nothappy.com and scan animal logos commonly found in public spaces. When they scan the logos, they are brought to life using AR and reveal a message about the animal in the form of a song. People will also be directed to discover and purchase one of the NotCo plant based products created by chefs with the help of AI.

"We frequently find restaurants, butcher shops and even frozen food brands that use happy animals in their logos. We are so used to seeing this in advertising that we often overlook the reality behind those smiles. The idea for this campaign was born from questioning: what would really make these animals happy?" said Guido Donadio and Sebastian Regiani, ECDs at GUT.

“To change the conversation about the origin of our food, we aim to bring to life this deep disturbing insight in a fun light-hearted way. NotCo's DNA is to revolutionize the food industry and we are very happy that this interactive campaign is a way to shine a light on the everyday choices we make about what goes on our plates.” Explained Lou Mckerrow, VP & Global Head of Marketing of NotCo.

Presenting themselves as a major disruptor in the industry through its proprietary AI platform, the latest campaign by NotCo and GUT aligns with their goal to provoke conversations about animal-based foods, and to provide a spotlight towards reinventing a new food system for not only everyone, everywhere, but for the betterment of the planet.

"We know that a campaign with these levels of irony and a simple but powerful insight is not common. As a result, we created the nothappy.com application, with the mission to provide people with the necessary tools to actively participate in the campaign (via the webapp) and invite them to try our products with a discount. At GUT, we believe that no provocation is complete without providing a space where people can take concrete actions, so we thought this would be a perfect way to do that," said Ramiro Rodriguez Cohen, CCO at GUT.