PETA Made a Children’s Puppet Show With a Dark Message About Fashion

Eating animal meat is going out of fashion among an increasing number of people adopting vegan or plant-based diets. Now, the charity People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is urging people to give up wearing animals, too. 

The organization’s new campaign highlights animal cruelty in fashion and asks consumers to stop buying and wearing all animal-based products, even wool. PETA is known for its provocative advertising, but this time that shock factor is hidden within a nostalgic form of entertainment.  

PETA’s film, created by U.K. agency House 337, parodies a classic children’s TV show from the 1980s or ’90s. British actress and comedian Jessie Cave stars in the singalong set at fictional Red River Farm, where she meets a cast of cheerful puppet animals, including a sheep, chicken and cow. 

The cute farm animals sing an upbeat tune, but their lyrics contain a dark message about the cruel treatment they endure in the name of fashion. The sheep reveals an open wound on its back, while the cow sings merrily of being “branded and abused” as “fashion’s the excuse.”

After Cave meets a brutalized snake, the animals return to the scene and urge viewers to share the truth about animal cruelty in fashion. Cave leaves the farm in tears.    

“Shop like their lives depend on it,” the ad’s endline says. “Don’t buy wool, feather or leather.”

PETA’s campaign will run for the next two years on social media channels, including Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. 

Will Wightman directed the film through production company BlinkInk. 

Playing on nostalgia

PETA asked House 337 to create “a powerful, memorable and shareable” video that would encourage people to embrace vegan fashion, the agency’s creative director Steve Hawthorne told Adweek. 

The organization also aimed to challenge people’s common misperceptions about how clothing is made. 

“Many views on how animals are used to make clothes are outdated and seen through a nostalgic lens of what people get taught in school,” Hawthorne explained. “Our film directly challenges the idea that there is something wholesome about the use of animals to make clothes.”

Playing on that nostalgic lens, the agency arrived at the idea of creating a faux children’s show that mixes entertainment with education. 

“We wanted the film to be entertaining as people are very quick to switch off these days to charity advertising,” Hawthorne continued.

Many consumers have been “bombarded with horrific imagery of what happens to animals” in previous charity advertising, but “that just doesn’t work anymore,” he said. PETA’s own advertising, which long relied on shock tactics, has contributed to that catalogue of imagery. 

But this time, it decided to take a different course. “We can’t go for a short, sharp shock,” Hawthorne explained. “Going with this style of ad helps us to speak to our core audience of 20- to 40-year-olds and hopefully get them to stop scrolling.”

PETA has switched up its advertising approach in recent campaigns, including last year’s “Octocurse,” parodying a 1970s science fiction show to persuade people to stop eating octopus.

CREDITS:

Client: PETA 

VP of Programs and Operations: Elisa Allen
Relations Manager: Iona Kirby
Agency: House 337
Executive Creative Directors: Jo Moore, Leon Jaume
Creative Directors:  Steve Hawthorne, Katy Hopkins
Senior Creatives: Holly Fallows, Charlotte Watmough
Senior Producer: Victoria Fischer, Lawrie McLintock
Planners Laura Sammarco, George Poynter
Account Director: Richard Williams, Chris Johnson
Designer: Nick Dinnen
Influencer Lead: Gemma Glover
Social Strategist: Duncan McLauchlan
Director: Will Wightman
Executive Producer: Josef Bryne 
Head of Production: Alex Halley 
Producer: William Kay 
Production Manager: Molly Turner
Production Assistant: Charlotte Herbert
Storyboards: Ewa Luczkow
Concept Artist: Mysie Pereira
Graphic Designer: Mickey Miles 
Talent: Jessie Cave
1st AD: Anna Argiros 
DOP: Toby Goodyear 
1st AC: Josh Higgin
Gaffer: Tim O’Connell
Spark: James Foreman, Robin Brigham
Makeup & Hair: Sarah Cherry
Art Director: Brin Frost 
Art Department: Jimmy Wilkes, Connor Chung, Rosie Tonkin, Sam McSweeney, Connor Quinn
Puppet Maker: Isabel Garret 
Puppet Wrangler: Areeya Bass
Lead Puppeteer: Charli Dubery
Puppeteer: Kim Scopes, Matt Lyons, Mikey Brett
Runner: Henry Kent
Edit Company: tenthree
Editor: Nick Armstrong
Edit producer: Rachel Goodger
Compositor: Caroline Tarrago 
Grade: no.8
Colorist: Alex Gregory
Color Producer: Charlie Morris
Audio Post Production: String and Tins  
Sound Design and Mix: Jim Stewart  
Foley: Kaspar Broyd 
Audio Producer: Olivia Endersby
Music Composition: Joe Wilkinson  
Music Composition and Lyrics: Will Wightman at Blink Industries
Post Production: Absolute
Post Producer: Phil Brewster
VFX Op: Joe Tang
VFX OP: Toby O’Connell