Meat Your Persona Tour

What was the challenge?

The world is facing an unprecedented climate crisis and one of the major contributors is our agricultural and farming systems. Research has shown that reducing our meat consumption is the single biggest way we can lessen our impact on the planet, whilst also reducing our potential risk of developing certain diseases and illnesses such as heart disease, obesity and diabetes. Public understanding and mobilisation around what we eat and how it affects our bodies and the planet is limited, and there is a distinct lack of information available to families and individuals around the UK about the decisions they can make to live healthier and more sustainable lives.

Back in 2019, researchers from LEAP (Livestock, Environment and People) at the University of Oxford commissioned us to connect with a broad audience through a public engagement activity that would raise awareness about the environmental and health impact of individual food choices, whilst also gaining valuable insight into the country’s eating behaviours. Following on from a successful pilot in Westgate Shopping Centre, Oxford in June 2019, we were commissioned to create the Meat Your Persona tour, taking the installation to locations across the UK during 2021.

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What did we do?

Academic research is incredibly important to our understanding of the world. Our goal was to bring LEAP’s research to life in a way that was relatable to the general public and easy to grasp.

We spoke to a range of people, interviewing participants from all over the country in order to develop a visual identity that would appeal to a mass audience, regardless of taste, financial background or gender. Armed with this knowledge, we identified six locations, each specifically selected in order to appeal to as broad an audience as possible, whilst also targeting personality types that LEAP identified as typically having the highest level of meat consumption or not engaging in the climate crisis at all.

The key criteria for our design thinking was that Meat Your Persona must be non-judgemental, accessible, interactive and reciprocal. As the tour was taking place during a pandemic, it was essential that the public’s altered behaviours and mindsets were also taken into account, with the likelihood of many being willing to engage for a much shorter timespan than usual.

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We brought all of this research together to build a custom-made, bright yellow horsebox, filled with facts and insights that could be accessed through a personality quiz. Topline provocations and questions presented themselves on freestanding structures, from which visitors made choices as they went around, culminating in an interactive reveal of their meat personality, along with recipe cards and pledges to support and encourage behaviour change. We captured the voices of LEAP scientists, playing them through the structures of the installation and using QR codes to take users to a specially designed website containing further information and tools.

Whilst the pilot version had been designed specifically to enable researchers to have direct conversations with the public and learn more about how to impart their findings, in this touring version the learning was broadened to include a growing understanding of the challenges and barriers to changing dietary behaviour as well as the systemic changes in the food system that people most wanted to see. This included signature boards encouraging visitors to reflect on the wider food ecosystem and put their name to the changes they want to see from policy makers and retailers. In every location visitors were welcomed by a dedicated team, including a tour manager, researchers and local facilitators recruited from each area.

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What has the impact been?

The tour began in Cardiff in May 2021, travelling around the country to shopping centres and public spaces in Blackpool, Newcastle, Manchester and Glasgow, before reaching its final stop at the Festival of Thrift in Darlington. Over five months we engaged over 100,000 people, with over 81% of the frequent meat eaters we spoke with telling independent evaluators that they had learned something new and 77% percent pledging to reduce their meat consumption. 

Insights gleaned from conversations with the public have been shared in a white paper and at a roundtable event with experts.

As of the end of 2023, the Meat Your Persona horsebox has found its permanent happy home at The Food Museum in Suffolk. The Oxford Uni LEAP team were delighted to gift it to the museum to ensure the project’s continued visibility and engagement.

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COLLABORATORS

Animations: Plan B
UX Design: Alice Parsons
Film: Tristan Shepherd