While the 60-second hero ad touts the drink’s “creamy velvet” texture, most of the narrative hinges on its climate-conscious bona fides and major ingredient: the Bambara groundnut.
“If we were to define ourselves just by making tasty products, we would be just another plant-based food company,” Sabine Schindlbauer, WhatIF’s marketing and communications director, told Adweek. “Our mission is to really go beyond and create a range of regenerative foods.”
The company’s point of difference is the Bambara nut, “a regenerative crop which has been under-cultivated and overlooked,” Schindlbauer said. “It thrives with very little water and in poor soil. And as it grows, it leaves organic matter that heals the soil.”
Since many Americans may have never heard of the Bambara nut, a protein-rich legume, “A Better Better” aims to make the ingredient accessible.
Planet-based food
At the risk of appearing grandiose, the marketing positions WhatIF as “bigger than plant-based food—it’s planet-based food,” which creatives say can stand up to scrutiny at a time of rampant greenwashing and greenhushing.
WhatIF has “this wonderful dissatisfaction with the status quo,” Yunes said. “They show up with solutions, they make people and places healthier, and they still have the humility to admit that no matter how they innovate and improve, more change isn’t just possible—it’s required.”
Regeneration is “more than a buzzword,” creatives said, noting the education and resources that WhatIF invests in its farmer communities.
“They’ve embraced this charming urgency that we’re all here temporarily, so we’ve got to go big now,” Williams said.
The brand’s founder and CEO, himself a former farmer, said it requires “radical honesty” to improve the ecosystem.
“Incremental change won’t do,” Chris Langwallner said. “We can’t just kick the can of sustainability down the road anymore.”
WhatIF, based in Singapore, first dropped its products in Australia, New Zealand, Ghana and Malaysia. In the U.S., the brand debuted in May 2022 and is now available in about 120 retailers, mainly in New York, Southern California and the Pacific Northwest, with that number expected to grow to 500 by next month. It also sells through its newly redesigned website and via Amazon.
