Depressingly, movements against animal cruelty have an extensive archive of anguish from which to draw for their advertising campaigns.
Videos and imagery of man’s brutality to beast have been used to devastating effect, and proved a catalyst for change in the supply chain. But audiences are possibly becoming immune to the horrors.
A new national campaign film from The Vegetarian Society, Ban Hatch & Dispatch (online), which launched this week, adopts a very different approach. And to great effect.
The warm and welcoming voice of Stephen Fry narrates the animated short, which starts with the same tone as a kids’ Christmas movie. He explains that we can’t buy cull-free eggs, and every egg we do buy “involves the deaths of 45 million baby chicks”.
The film introduces the “wasteful and cruel” practice of “hatch and dispatch”. Because “industrial egg producers need hens”, when male chicks are born they are culled in huge numbers.
Cleverly, Fry presents the main argument in favour of the process put forward by producers, that it is “unavoidable”. But “the technology exists today to identify which eggs are male before they hatch, avoiding a brief life and pointless death”, he notes. Indeed, we learn, it is standard practice in France, Germany and Italy.
There’s a clear call to action too: Petition government to mandate in-ovo sexing. An accompanying campaign website and media push explains that a simple act amendment would do it, and at an estimated cost of 1p extra per egg.
It’s a convincing video that rather than simply shock, lays out the logic and clear steps for change.
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