Steak-umm—the brand that sells thin-sliced frozen meat steaks—is back with another project in their ongoing campaign to fight dis- and mis-information. Wait, what? Steak-umm is doing critical media literacy? Yes, that's right, and they're actually doing it quite well!
The new campaign is called "Deepsteaks," and uses the tagline "There's a lot at stake with deepfakes." The brand recently released a new video featuring interviews with vegans eating tofu sandwiches and talking about their reasons for being vegan. Through deepfake technologies, these poor vegans are turned into Steak-umm-loving meat fans, much to their surprise and chagrin.
Adweek explains:
The goal of the adulterated video is to make a point about the potential of AI to invade an average person's life, given the tech's recent history of "being used to gaslight, defraud and sow confusion" among the American populace, per the brand.
With the campaign—dubbed "DeepSteaks"—the second-generation family-owned frozen beef brand continues its unlikely yet now well-established battle against misinformation in the digital age.
And via a related site, DeepSteaks.ai, the company wants to help educate consumers about the hot button issue, asking them to sign a petition to support the Deep Fake Accountability Act and lobby their elected officials to take action.
Steak-umm has been doing critical media literacy via advertisements for a few years now. They've pinned a post on their X/Twitter page that contains a thread of much of this work. They explain:
This is the official Steak-umm thread of threads to organize our top tweetstorm rants from over the years. topics include scientific literacy, critical thinking, memes, cognitive biases, woke brands, polarization, conspiracy theories, and more. Steak-umm bless.
In 2020, Steak-umm posted a Twitter thread that, according to FastCompany, "offered a sobering string of advice on media literacy, disinformation, and staying informed amid the pandemic." And even earlier, back in 2018, Steak-umm created another critical media literacy thread that went viral. That thread, according to FastCompany:
Addressed social isolation, student loan debt, and generational angst associated with a lack of job opportunity, and a cultural obsession with repackaging of nostalgia into cynical products.
I never thought I'd say this, but way to go, Steak-umm, you're doing really great educational work! Learn more about the "Deepsteaks" campaign here.
