The city of Haarlem banned meat ads, ad agency Fitzroy and client La Vie posted unbannable ad campaign in response

As the Guardian and the BBC reported last week, the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands local council has proposed a ban on all meat advertising, set to be enforced in 2024, due to meat's impact on the environment.

With those headline fresh in memory, ad agency Fitzroy created this timely campaign for client La Vie.

La Vie is plant-based bacon, whatever that means. But it looks like meat!

This reminds me of the Mitch Hedberg joke about turkey: "If you stand in the meat section at the grocery store long enough, you start to get mad at turkeys. There's turkey ham, turkey bologna, turkey pastrami. Someone needs to tell the turkey, 'man, just be yourself.'"

With headlines like "Sorry Haarlem, you can't ban this bacon ad!", "Nobody wants to see a bacon ad nowadays", and "Finally, no more meat on billboards!" the ad campaign is teasing the ban a bit, while clearly setting out to conquer the meat-free but meat-alike bacon market. It signs of with the brand name and the promise that it'll soon be available at a supermarket near you.

Ad agency: fitzroy