Mammoth Meatball

VML captures the world’s attention with the launch of the "Mammoth Meatball".

With the first meatball made from the DNA of the long-extinct Woolly Mammoth, this campaign aims to spark conversations about the future of food. Global audiences were intrigued by the idea, and the campaign achieved a media reach of over 12.8 billion and 3,200 press mentions in the first two weeks after launch, with extensive media coverage from the BBC, The Telegraph, Sky News, UK Guardian, The Independent, The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Good Morning Britain and America’s Late Show with Stephen Colbert, amongst many others.

Mammoth Meatball Cannes Generic Case Study

Advertisers often talk about pushing boundaries, but scientists are the ones pushing the real boundaries of knowledge and finding new answers to age-old questions. Let’s use that knowledge more often for the benefit of our clients.

Bas Korsten

Chief Creative Officer, EMEA & Innovation, VML

With 28-30% of global greenhouse gases generated by food production and a growing global population approaching 9 billion, the world will need to produce as much food in the next 40 years it did in the last 8,000, according to the World Economic Forum. In a report by Chatham House for the UN documenting how our global food system is a primary driver of biodiversity loss, it's estimated that 86% of the 28,000 species at threat of extinction list agriculture as a potential contributing factor.

10,000 years ago, giant mammoths roamed the earth but climate change destroyed every last one of them. Unable to adapt to the dramatic speed in which their landscape transformed, the woolly mammoth became a monumental symbol of what's at stake. Today, over one million species are at risk of extinction because of climate change – and that includes the human race.

Will humans eat their way out of extinction?

Introducing the Mammoth Meatball – a unique experiment to inspire new conversations about the future of food. The world’s first meatball made from mammoth DNA was revealed at Nemo Science Museum in the Netherlands, a scientific experiment using advanced molecular engineering by the Australian cultured meat company Vow and a team of international experts to demonstrate the potential of cultured meat to revolutionize the food industry.

Using new and innovative technology, the Mammoth Meatball was created from the DNA of the extinct woolly mammoth and completed with fragments of African elephant DNA, a close relative to the mammoth.

Mammoth Meatball is a striking statement to challenge the public and the meat industry to think differently about how food is produced and how we consume food, highlighting cultured meat as a viable alternative to traditional animal agriculture.