Buckminster Fuller was a writer, designer, inventor, architect, philosopher and futurist. (You can call him Bucky if you know what a buckyball is…kind of a molecule…uhm, something about carbon bonds…ya, close enough).
His most famous quote is the one featured above. Don't fight the establishment, just make it obsolete.
If feels like vegan business has taken that quote to heart and absolutely run with it.
There are vegan versions of everything now - foods, clothes, cars, cosmetics, restaurants, hotels, consultants, health professionals, dieticians, personal trainers, entertainers and so on.
And we need all of them.
If you've been paying any attention to the world at all, you'll know that animals need all the help they can get.
Wild animals are losing their habitats – their very homes – at ferocious rates and farmed animal agriculture is the leading cause.
Wild animals are being replaced by cows and pigs and chickens.
Those lonely green dots in the diagram, they're all the wild animals we have left.
There are vegans and animal defenders all around the world fighting for animal rights; through advocacy and broadcasting, through writing and direct action. Vegan businesses are a massive part of this movement, encouraging a kind, sustainable world and a way of living that is regenerative, not exploitative.
And vegan business is booming.
Uber Eats states that orders of vegan menu items rocketed by 1436% in the UK in the years between 2019-2021. In 2021, Deliveroo reported a 105% spike in vegan orders in the UK and an 80% increase in Ireland.
A Bloomberg report predicted that the global plant-based alternatives market could grow to $162 billion in the next decade, from $29.4 billion in 2020.
What about clothes?
The value of the global women's vegan fashion market is forecast to rise substantially over the coming years, more than doubling from 2020 to 2026. By 2028, the value of all women's fashion that is not made from animal products is estimated to total over one trillion U.S. dollars.
In Aug 2018, Waterstones had 944 book titles with the word ‘”vegan” in them. In January 2022, they had over 10,000.
I’ve heard some people say that they find it a bit annoying the way that vegan stuff is ‘everywhere’ now. They find it a little pushy. They feel ganged up on.
Of course they do. Because veganism is not just about products or services, it’s about a moral stance. And if that moral stance holds up a mirror to your own shaky morals then yes, you’ll find that pretty annoying.
As David Mitchell wrote :
Repetition is a crucial technique in the advertising and marketing world.
The Rule of Seven is the marketing adage which states that a potential customer will need to see or hear a specific marketing message at least seven times before they will buy from you. Some customers may buy straight away, some may take more than ten nudges, but seven is the accepted average.
It’s worked for cigarettes, for alcohol, for soft drinks, for religions, for medications, you name it.
Repeat, reiterate, duplicate, echo, recapitulate and rerun your message. Oh, and then say it again.
The great news is that it can work for veganism too and the beauty here is that it’s not all about the same product. Every vegan product and service is advertising veganism.
Many people say they wish they could be vegan but…
Or that they could never go vegan because…
I smile (and yes, sometimes I’ll stroke a cat like a Bond villain) because I know that someday these people will look around at their community, whatever form that takes, and realise they’re being badly left behind while everyone else moves with the times.
Vegan is the future. How fast you get there is up to you.
by Samantha Connolly (podcast host)
