San Diego billboard campaign asks people to 'Eat Differently'

Advocates of a plant-based diet launched a major advertising campaign in the Greater San Diego area Tuesday featuring 29 billboards that will be displayed for three months.

In what organizers are calling one of the largest such campaigns ever produced, the "Eat Differently" billboards will feature luminaries who have spoken out about eating a plant-forward diet.

Designed as an homage to Apple's classic "Think Different" campaign from the late 1990s, the billboards also illustrate the fact that a large portion of the original icons featured in the Think Different campaign ate differently as well, including Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Einstein, Jane Goodall and Cesar Chavez, organizers said.

Backers hope the campaign will show people why it's "critically important to transition to a plant-based diet for improving our health, stopping animal cruelty, protecting our planet, fighting world hunger, and preventing diseases and pandemics."

The billboard images were painted exclusively for the campaign by renowned speed artist Amy Burkman.

"It's extremely pressing that people switch from eating meat to a diet that centers on plants," said Naomi Hallum, CEO of the nonprofit States GenV.org. "And I can't wait for the people of San Diego to see these stunningly beautiful billboards and to make the connection between thinking differently and eating differently."