As you may have heard, the Factory Farming Awareness Coalition won free ad space on BART for the third year in a row! Congrats, you guys! In part thanks to many of our readers voting I’m sure. Well, the ads have launched! And they are already getting some nice coverage.
This year, I actually helped with the ad concepting and copy a bit. FFAC wanted to target dairy, including an ad taking aim at the role of dairy in the CA drought. They were inspired by this Mother Jones post showing just how much water goes into various dairy products. The shower idea came because, like us vegans continue to lament, it’s ridiculous how the water conservation agenda focuses so much attention on things like turning the water off when you brush your teeth or watering your lawn at dawn but they neglect to inform people about the impact of meat and dairy on the water supply. Meanwhile, avoiding those products would make a HUGE impact in water conservation. Not that the other suggestions aren’t good, but they are so minor compared to resource-suck that is animal agriculture.
Here’s the other ad, a gentle alert to the fact that dairy cows have to have babies to produce milk—and those babies aren’t hanging out with mom if people are drinking the milk. It doesn’t go all the way to the veal industry relationship but just connecting the dots for people about mammals…milk…babies…is important. I have conversations all the time with non-vegans who are completely unaware that dairy cows don’t just constantly produce milk without being impregnated. Actually, if we’re being honest, I didn’t really know that before I started looking into veganism. I mean if you think about it, it’s like duh, but we are just so distanced from food sources that people don’t even think about the logistics of it all.
However! It’s not all doom and gloom in this post! FFAC wanted me to inform you that they are holding a little Instagram contest for the ads and the prizes are SO EXCITING! There’s a contest for each ad. It doesn’t appear that you need to post an actual photo of the ad in the station, but just the ad itself. You do HAVE to follow @ffacoalition’s IG account though. More details:
Drought Ad: From now until September 19th, post the Drought ad on your Instagram account, tag @ffacoalition and hashtag it with #ffaconbart, and you could win a three-month subscription to either the Vegan Cuts Beauty Box OR the Vegan Cuts Snack Box! Winner’s choice!
Calf Ad: Starting September 21st and ending October 5th, post a pic of the calf ad on your IG account, again tagging @ffacoalition and hashtagging #ffaconbart. For this one, you could win a $50.00 gift certificate to Vegan Essentials! That’s ONLY my FAVORITE store EVER.
The super official rules are here but that’s the basic need-to-know. Nice prizes, right?!
Has anyone seen the ads irl? TAKE A PICTURE FOR ME! I want to see it “in situ” as us ad folk say. I’ll be your best friend!