Stop the machine for Compassion in World Farming
This 2017 campaign for Compassion in World Farming is one that’s especially close to my heart. I spent ten years working on animal welfare/rights campaigns when I first started in the non-profit sector, so when Compassion asked DTV to create a new campaign to inform wildlife lovers about the devastating impact of factory farming, we were more than ready.
Huge swathes of wildlife habitat all over the world are destroyed to grow crops for animal feed for intensively reared farm animals. This campaign calls for an urgent rethink of how we produce and consume food.
First, we devised the name and messaging for the campaign, Stop The Machine, to answer the question: why is our wildlife disappearing? Personifying the complex and destructive global system of agribusiness and factory farming into a ‘terrible machine’ helped to simplify and visualise its impact on our wildlife.
With our partners at Up, we created a strong, versatile visual approach for #StopTheMachine. Bold typography delivered our opening message “There’s a faceless, heartless, relentless machine out there, sucking the life out of our forests and oceans. It’s so powerful, the animals don’t stand a chance” and iconic graphics showed elephants, jaguars and penguins disappearing from their natural environment and into the ‘machine’.
DTV created and produced the campaign film and together we produced an impactful touring exhibition to deliver its message to new audiences and policy makers: If you care about wildlife, you will want to stop factory farming. And we can all do something, because the everyday food choices we all make could help save these much-loved animals.
Compassion’s launch event for Stop The Machine was a special evening in London’s Natural History Museum, at which Chris Darwin, naturalist and great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, said:
“I know Charles would want to stop the machine because he loved the natural world…Ultimately, we have got to put factory farming to bed. In the museum. Out of history. Right now.”
Since then, Compassion has broadened the scope of the campaign to a wider audience. Their recent million signature petition to world leaders, supported by additional animal welfare organisations, asked for a Global Agreement on food production that will bring an end to factory faming. Watch out for further actions and updates on the END.IT campaign platform. You can sign up at www.end.it
Bio
Gillian is a Senior creative strategist, working across all clients to find the sweet spots where the needs of NGOs and their audiences meet. She's led a huge range of fundraising and campaign messaging and communications, for more years than she cares to say.