The Meatrix – Exposing a Business Gone Bad

This story has a couple good business lessons in it. Good and bad. It is about the site The Meatrix which is a very clever spoof of The Matrix films used as an exposé of factory farming.

***Warning: if you visit The Meatrix you are likely not going to enjoy your next hamburger nearly as much [seriously!].

Factory farming is a perfect example of what was being pointed to in The Corporation. What are the consequences, both short and long term, when a corporate mentality loses site of its responsibility to be
a good citizen [even if the law allows this oversite] and focus on profit at all costs.

The other lesson is the skillful use of humor to market a very serious message. That takes skill and they have pulled it off very well. The organization behind The Meatrix is called Sustainable Table and here’s what they were trying to do with their site:

Sustainable Table works to educate consumers about the problems with factory farming and to promote sustainable food. The Meatrix was originally produced as a way to promote the Eat Well Guide, Sustainable Table’s online directory of sustainable farms, stores and restaurants in the US and Canada that sell meat, poultry, dairy and eggs from small, sustainable family farmers. But only days after release,
it became evident that The Meatrix was also an excellent educational tool about factory farming. The film broke all records for online advocacy and was seen by millions of people in the first few months alone.

Like I said, there is a big lesson for all people who have business influence in this story, myself included. Let’s try and minimize the damage we are doing to each other in the name of bigger profits…I’m pretty certain that in the long run we’ll wish we had done things differently.

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