Plant-based food brand THIS has launched a new integrated campaign to support the debut of its THIS™ Fillet Steak, combining a country-and-western music video, social and Out-Of-Home (OOH) activity and an experiential tattoo parlour activation.
Titled “A Delicious Misteak”, the campaign centres on fictional cowboy Flint Flatiron, whose worldview is challenged after accidentally trying — and enjoying — a plant-based steak. The creative leans into cinematic Western tropes, pairing expansive frontier-inspired visuals with stylised food imagery and an original soundtrack produced by creative studio INSIDERS.
The hero asset is a fully produced music video featuring an original country-and-western track written and recorded by INSIDERS. Supporting assets include social cutdowns and platform-specific edits, with the campaign rolling out across paid social and OOH channels.
According to the brand, the campaign was designed to tap into the growing mainstream popularity of country-and-western aesthetics and music, while reframing perceptions of plant-based food through entertainment-led storytelling.
“We wanted to make something that’s never been done before to mark the arrival of our new THIS Fillet Steak,” said Debbie Epstein, Marketing Director at THIS. “So we produced a country and western track, obviously – complete with cowboy and pop-up tattoo parlour. It’s a fun and somewhat bonkers way of getting the message out there that plant-based steak is for everyone, even cowboys…Yeehaw!”
“Tricking people into eating plant-based meat is a very well-trodden path as a creative territory,”said Josh Clarricoats, Founder & Creative Lead at Insiders. “We wanted to take a different approach, one that didn’t feel like just another product demo or gotcha moment. At the same time, we knew the cowboy aesthetic is having a real cultural moment, from the rise of country and western in the charts to shows like Yellowstone (a big favourite at Insiders and THIS HQ), so it felt like the perfect genre to lean into and have some fun with
“By creating Flint as a character and building a full country and western music narrative around him, we could tell a more entertaining, human story about that moment of unexpected conversion. It allowed us to make something that stands on its own as a piece of entertainment first, rather than just an ad, and bring people into the idea in a way that feels fresh for the category.”
As part of the wider campaign rollout, THIS also partnered with Ivor Henry and Good Company to stage a one-day cowboy-themed tattoo parlour takeover at vegan tattoo studio Flamin’ Eight on 16 May. Visitors were offered bespoke Western-inspired flash tattoos alongside samples of the new THIS Fillet Steak served in plant-based steak sandwiches.
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