Should you use the term vegan, cruelty-free or plant-based in your brand?

The first question you may have is how ‘vegan’ you should make your brand.  For example, should you use the word vegan or plant-based when talking about your company, or not even mention it at all?  And the same with your visual brand – how ‘vegan’ should that be?  Should you be reaching for the visual shortcuts of green leaves and rustic fonts?  This is your first decision to make and an important part of discovering your ‘brand voice’.

How vegan you make your brand, and what terms you use, is important.  This comes back to what we learnt earlier about the ‘plant-based’ market as a whole.  We know that many customers for vegan products might not be vegan themselves – they might be vegetarian, meat-reduction or right at the start of their vegan journey – so labelling your product as vegan might stop these people from engaging with you because they don’t identify as vegan themselves.  So, should you present yourself as an overtly vegan company, or should you perhaps say that you are plant-based, or even something else entirely?

Lisa and I get asked this question a lot, so we came up with a simple system to help you decide: it’s not about you, it’s about your customer.

If your customer isn’t vegan and you lead with ‘vegan’ in your brand name or message, then you could be alienating the very people you are aiming at.  So go for the lowest common denominator.  If you sell to non-vegans just as much as vegans, then consider using ‘plant-based’ in your marketing.  Vegan consumers will know this is for them, and it also won’t put off the people who don’t yet identify as vegans themselves.  This is why Vivera, Beyond Meat and many others who aim at converting people right at the start of their plant-based journey don’t use the term vegan on their products.

If, however, the majority of your customers do identify as vegan (or are working towards it) then they want to know that this product is for them.  If your company’s mission is based in campaigning and ethics and you are mainly only selling to other vegans then embrace the term!  Make sure you use the word in your branding and all over your website, make sure all your staff are wearing Viva La Vegan ‘Vegan Tribe’ hoodies in their profile pictures, show your ‘V’ tattoo with pride on your LinkedIn page, and it will be far easier to build a loyal, (although potentially smaller) customer base.

That’s why we’re called Vegan Business Tribe and not Plant-based Business Tribe!  We want you to know that you’re engaging with other vegans, we share your ethics.  We rally behind the word vegan and want to help others who are also doing everything they can to create a more compassionate world – even if that means that you decide to use the term ‘plant-based’ because you know you will convert more people that way.

There are also a few other options.  Blondes vegan cafe chose to call themselves ‘Blondes Cruelty-free Eatery’, knowing that if they put ‘vegan cafe’ on the front of the shop that many of the people they wanted to engage with would never make it through the door.  Not necessarily because these people are anti-vegan, but they would simply think it wasn’t meant for them; they were not part of that tribe.  Go into the cafe however and it’s quickly apparent by the framed photos on the walls and by the themes of the cards they sell by the entrance that you’re entering a place run by people who love animals.  Which won’t put anyone off, because everyone is an animal lover, aren’t they?  Blondes isn’t excluding anyone.  But the term ‘cruelty-free’ gives Blondes the opportunity to have conversations with customers about how the food we eat gets to our plates.