The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2022–2023
Greenpeace grows giant cows in a fable that shows soy-fed meat devouring the forest
An animated fable turns the soya-for-livestock chain into cows and chickens that grow so fast they devour the trees, the farm and the farmer.
Greenpeace
What it had to solve
Greenpeace wanted people to connect deforestation with the growth of the soya industry used to feed animals. The chain is real, but it happens far from the plate, so the link usually stays abstract.
How it works
Greenpeace's subject was a connection that rarely reaches the consumer: deforestation driven by the growth of the soya industry used to feed animals. The chain is real, but the forest being cleared sits far from the plate, so the link usually stays abstract.
The film made the chain literal as a fable. In the animation, cows and chickens are fed and grow so fast that, in the end, they devour the trees, the forest, the farm — and the farmer. Oversized livestock consuming the very land that raised them turns an invisible supply chain into a single escalating image.
The device works because it gives the audience a picture to keep: meat-eating does not have to look like deforestation, but the fable says that is exactly what it ends up being. D&AD keeps the animation in its awards archive, filed among its Illustration entries, and the page records no reach figures.
Why it lands
- The causal chain from soya feed to felled forest is compressed into one escalating image instead of a lecture of statistics.
- Fable logic lets the ending be absurd rather than accusatory: even the farmer is devoured, so the point lands as consequence, not blame.
- The animals being fed are the ones on the viewer's plate, so the distant deforestation story implicates the audience directly.
- Animation can draw the impossible scene cheaply and in any language, so the idea travels without protest logistics or footage.
What it did
D&AD keeps the animation in its awards archive, filed among its Illustration entries; the page records no reach figures, so the case stands on the fable itself.
What you can take
When harm is caused far up a supply chain, turn the chain into a fable whose ending the audience can picture — the absurd image carries the argument better than any statistic.
Since then
D&AD keeps 'Deforestation Is Not a Fiction' in its awards archive; the page records no follow-up metrics, so the case stands on the device. The transferable move: when the damage an audience causes is out of sight, draw the full causal chain as a fable and let its ending do the persuading — giant animals devouring the farm are easier to keep than any deforestation statistic.
Sources
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