Personally, I admire your integrity and willingness to write this post, despite very strong attacks (not constructive criticism) you endured for thinking outside the box and trying something more risky, which marketing specialists in commercial markets do all the time. This point, I think, is missed. In marketing, controversial campaigns are very common; sometimes they succeed, sometimes they totally fail; it’s normal. One of the most successful campaigns in Poland is one big grocery chain - Lidl, fighting with the other big chain—Biedronka, or I think there is this exchange between two car brands, where one disses the other in commercials. You literally wanted to try a classic marketing strategy that works for the richest brands in the world. I don’t think there was anything wrong with the ToC to start with.
I also don’t think you could predict how big the wave of criticism will be. I have been in the animal movement for 25 years, 25 of those vegan as well, and yet I thought the intentions behind this campaign would be much clearer to fellow advocates. It turned out that our community was absolutely not ready for something like that, despite, as I said, it being a classical marketing strategy, and despite the goal being to help animals via counterfactual donations (donations that would not otherwise happen without this specific campaign, potentially coming from non-vegans).
I think the momentum for this campaign was stolen from you, so you could never really finish the ToC and see whether it would have been successful if you were not blocked by the movement. You getting donations is very interesting—as James mentions here, would this not suggest that there are some people who actually decided to donate because of the campaign? But the result obviously was much less than you probably had in mind. Still, it seems like you have not lost any money, and there might be some positive effects for Veganuary as well.
I agree, the planning could be better, but it seems to me that with $3.3 million raised in 2025, a 2.94x counterfactual multiplier, and a 13.27x non-counterfactual, Farmkind is really in a good position to take risks and make mistakes.
Personally, I admire your integrity and willingness to write this post, despite very strong attacks (not constructive criticism) you endured for thinking outside the box and trying something more risky, which marketing specialists in commercial markets do all the time. This point, I think, is missed. In marketing, controversial campaigns are very common; sometimes they succeed, sometimes they totally fail; it’s normal. One of the most successful campaigns in Poland is one big grocery chain - Lidl, fighting with the other big chain—Biedronka, or I think there is this exchange between two car brands, where one disses the other in commercials. You literally wanted to try a classic marketing strategy that works for the richest brands in the world. I don’t think there was anything wrong with the ToC to start with.
I also don’t think you could predict how big the wave of criticism will be. I have been in the animal movement for 25 years, 25 of those vegan as well, and yet I thought the intentions behind this campaign would be much clearer to fellow advocates. It turned out that our community was absolutely not ready for something like that, despite, as I said, it being a classical marketing strategy, and despite the goal being to help animals via counterfactual donations (donations that would not otherwise happen without this specific campaign, potentially coming from non-vegans).
I think the momentum for this campaign was stolen from you, so you could never really finish the ToC and see whether it would have been successful if you were not blocked by the movement. You getting donations is very interesting—as James mentions here, would this not suggest that there are some people who actually decided to donate because of the campaign? But the result obviously was much less than you probably had in mind. Still, it seems like you have not lost any money, and there might be some positive effects for Veganuary as well.
I agree, the planning could be better, but it seems to me that with $3.3 million raised in 2025, a 2.94x counterfactual multiplier, and a 13.27x non-counterfactual, Farmkind is really in a good position to take risks and make mistakes.