Happy Christmassacre. It’s an every-family Christmas meal. The table is loaded with a sumptuous array of food goodies. Moods are buoyant. Everyday conversations are flowing – fixing the garage door, friends with relationship troubles, watching the seasons change, traffic on the M3. What no one at the table is noticing – but you will – is that everyone is becoming splattered with blood.

Grey London has found another striking way for PETA to state its abhorrence of human’s attitude to animals. This time, the campaign points to the number of animals slaughtered at Christmas.

The cinema commercial, directed by O Positive director, David Shane, plus OOH and social encourage people to choose compassion over cruelty by going vegan for Christmas. While December is often painted as a time of joy and generosity, millions of animals are slaughtered to fill dinner tables.

In OOH, the appeal is conveyed through visual imagery in which traditional festive symbols are reimagined through a confronting new lens. Santa’s red and white suit, for example, is replaced with close ups of stained animal pelts.

The hero film will appear in UK cinemas and on global digital platforms, with Germany, the UK and the US as key social markets. OOH executions will appear nationwide in the UK, with guerilla style fly postings across London in particular.

​Helen Rhodes, chief creative officer, Grey London, stated, “Nothing says Christmas like carving up the corpse of a once-sentient being in front of your nearest and dearest. This year, we wanted to shine a light on that dark festive tradition, to expose the quiet, normalised savagery that plays out at millions of dinner tables across the country. We hope our message resonates so that this Christmas, more people choose compassion over cruelty – and that nut roast sales go through the roof.”

David Shane, added, “It’s such a strong and simple idea. We’re all complicit, right? Most of us kind of turn a wilful blind eye to how the food we eat at the holidays arrives on our plate. But even though we’re trying to say something fairly serious, it was a ludicrously hilarious shoot. And the hardest job fell to our lovely cast who had to try not to laugh when getting sprayed with streams of fake blood.”

Credits:
Client: PETA
Creative Agency: Grey London
Chief Creative Officer: Helen Rhodes
Chief Strategy Officer: Tarek Sioufi
Managing Director: Jonny Tennant-Price
Head of Creative Operations: James Mcnichol
Creative Directors: Sam Haynes & John Gibson
Head of Production: Maxine Hose
Producers: Lizzie Mabbott & Alicia Cordell
Business Director:Tamsine Foggin
Account Director: Hugo Soer
Design Director: Sarah Burns
Motion Designer: Tyrone Zall
Artworker: Nigel Miller
Strategist: Serena Coyle
Production Managers: Melissa Beeson & Sarah Scarlett
Project Manager: Anisha Chandarana

Production Company: O Positive
Director: David Shane
Producer: Nell Jordan
Executive Producers: Nell Jordan, Ralph Laucella & Marc Grill
Director of Photography: Chris Sabogal
Production Designer: Kem White
Production Manager: Polly Leach
Casting: Michael Cox

Post Production & VFX: Untold Studios
Executive Producer: Ian Berry
Producer:Elle Lockhart
Post Production Assistant: Alisa Hussain
VFX Supervisor: Alex Grey
VFX Lead: Andrew Curtis
VFX Artist: Sam Curtis
Online Editor: Andrew Curtis
Colourist: Julien Alary
Colour Producer: Eli Sandal

Editing: Mack Cut
Editor: Gavin Cutler
Edit Assistant: Louisa Phillips

Music: APM Music
Sound: Runamok
Sound Designer: Jonny Platt
Sound: 750mph
Sound Mix: Mike Bovill