The weekly supermarket shop is something that we all undertake mostly on autopilot. A Harvard professor estimates that 95% of purchasing decisions are made by subconscious urges. For those of us who are trying to make steps to buying better welfare meat and dairy products, our emotions can be triggered by simple, yet clever, marketing tactics. Illustrations of rolling hills and leading phrases such as ‘farm fresh’ or ‘all natural’ are used by brands as a way to code information for our super fast-processing, subconscious minds. There is no regulation around packaging artwork or phrasing so ‘all natural’ could mean virtually anything. ‘Farm’ could mean intensively reared in indoor cages. CIWF had a labelling system solution to this problem and wanted to gain petition signatures to lobby the government for real change. They needed to get the word out but had a restrictive budget for media buying. After running a workshop with CIWF it was clear not many outside of their existing supporters knew about the problem.
Street art has always been a platform for activism. And with one of the country’s best graffiti scenes in the very same area as a bustling street food event, what better place to put our message out in an unexpected way than Digbeth? Every time a piece of stencil art goes up, it's followed by speculation that street art's santa has come to town. This could play perfectly into our hands.
We brought a Birmingham-born graffiti artist back to his roots and commissioned a thought provoking piece of a pig in an upside down trolley (representing a cage). The speculation sparked on social media and with regional press coverage to boot, it gave CIWF an attentive audience to reveal their campaign message. It sparked 28k social media impressions and the campaign reached it's 100k petition signature goal.
