Our Anti-Dairy Campaign 2023

Dairy-Truth’s anti-dairy advertising campaign began, Mon. Sept. 11th, 2023 and ran for 4-weeks (plus bonus time). Many activists shared images of the campaign as it began. The image to the right was shared via email by Toronto Cow Save who had received the email from a supporter and wasn’t aware of our organization. We ended up reaching out to him to share our information as he now wishes to donate $500 per year to help us do what we do!

Our campaign consisted of 71 faces displayed on transit shelters in close proximity to major grocery retailers throughout the city of Toronto - the fourth largest urban market in North America!

The week leading up to the campaign included a 5-week social media ad campaign to promote our blog post on the undercover investigation by animal rights activists at Cedar Valley Farms in Abbotsford, British Columbia. This was part of our overall social media ad spend for this broader campaign. This story broke in 2021, and after a year long investigation, the BC SPCA recommended charges to be laid by crown prosecutors, unfortunately to date, nothing has happened. Our goal was to hopefully spark a renewed interest in this case.

Click on each image above to view larger. Photos taken by various activists who spotted the transit shelter posters around the city.

Advertising Campaign Proof of Performance

Please find proof-of-performance for our advertising campaign, including a map of locations where transit shelters were located (adjacent), advertising contract, proof of payment and additional information provided by Astral Media Outdoor for the outdoor component and META as it relates to the social media ad campaign (see below).

Outdoor Ad Campaign

The outdoor ad campaign consisted of the following:

Number of faces: 72
Daily Circulation (vehicular and pedestrian traffic in plain view of the ad face): 1,276,943
Total Circulation (for the entire campaign): 35,754,420

Outdoor Ad Contract.pdf | Location List.pdf | Proof of Payment.pdf

Social Media Ad Campaign

The social media ad campaign (with the hashtag #DairyFreeToronto) - included several ads that linked to the Cedar Valley Farm story, with unique creative, and links to our general home page using imagery consistent with our outdoor posters.

Overall reach: 385,562
Link clicks: 22,613
Avg. Cost Per Link Click: $0.46 cents CDN (or $0.34 cents USD)

Social Media Ads.pdf | Meta Proof of Payment.pdf

As our social media ads began to run on Facebook, they started to appear in various iterations from the “Story” feature users see at the top of their feeds, to ads appearing in the feeds themselves, to Instagram ads (owned by META) and in Messenger. Furthermore, many others online were sharing images of our campaign across the country. Here are two examples: one “Story” social media ad, and a post by a group called “Vegan Islanders” (an activist group located on Vancouver Island on the west coast of Canada). Their post was seen by 6,100 people alone with an additional 404 shares at the time of capturing this image.

DairyTruth.ca Flyers

In addition to the outdoor and social media campaign, we also conducted leafleting. The goal was to focus on consumer outreach at locations where our posters were located and had high, pedestrian traffic. In turn, all of our posters were located in close proximity to major grocers when/where consumers purchasing decisions are top-of-mind.

Below, and adjacent, are images of both the artwork used, and the actual flyers themselves (designed to reflect a milk bottle). We engaged both an organizer for PETA to distribute these flyers at street level, and with other well-known, local activists. Some who are independent, and some who are members of Toronto Cow Save (a local chapter of The SAVE Movement). and Plant-Based Treaty. We used Toronto’s “Animal Rights Lab” as a drop-off location of the flyers for activists to pick them up.

We printed 5,000 copies from Eagle Press, a printer just west of Toronto.

Printing Invoice.pdf | Printing Receipt.pdf

Unexpectedly, when word of our flyers started to spread among the activist community, we started receiving requests for these flyers for community outreach we did not plan nor anticipate. As we had additional copies left, we began to ship these to people in Toronto, and as far away as Edmonton, Alberta. We even received requests for the artwork from an activist in Poland who asked if we could share a digital file of the artwork. He would print them locally and use them for outreach in his country. We were happy to oblige.

Toronto Maple Leafs

One of the more unexpected opportunities to spread Dairy-Truth’s message came about when the NHL held it’s annual All-Star Game at Toronto Maple Leaf’s home rink - Scotiabank Arena! A group of Toronto activists organized a free giveaway of So Delicious ice-cream bars. Why? Because recently the Toronto Maple Leaf’s and the Dairy Farmers of Ontario inked a sponsorship deal in which, among other things, the “Milk” logo would be prominently displayed on their team uniforms for both home and away games.

Furious activists (many of whom are also Maple Leaf fans), decided to purchase 1,000 of the vegan So Delicious ice-cream bars to hand out to attendees at the All-Star Game at the beginning of January, 2024. One problem: there was no literature available to hand-out along with the ice cream bars. Then an organizer reached out to us as she was made aware of our flyers. We provided her with 1,000 cards to give out along with the bars. it was a huge success! All 1,000 flyers were handed out. Below is an image gallery capturing a few images from the day.

Bonus!

One other unexpected event took place, and it has to do with our outdoor ad campaign. Back in February of 2024, some folks on social media were commenting about “anti-dairy” ads appearing around the city of Toronto again. We assumed this was to do with another organization. It didn’t take long before a few folks posted a picture of one of our original transit shelter posters popping up around town. While others confirmed they had seem them too. This image is the only one we were able to find online. We have reached out to our sales rep at Bell Media (Astral Media Outdoor) to see if she knows how many were re-posted and their locations. Often during the winter months, outdoor ad inventory becomes more available as many ad agencies decline to use outdoor to reach consumers. Thus, outdoor companies often draw on any available inventory or paid advertisers previous campaigns to fill otherwise empty ad faces.

Press Release

As part of our campaign, we also set up an account with a network of news wire outlets and distributors. Our focus, as much of our campaign was, was on media and news outlets in Ontario, Canada. This is the press release issued.

Conclusion

We hope all of this information meets with your satisfaction and that the funding we received from the KARUNA Foundation was well spent and achieved the anticipated reach we all hoped for.

We are confident we achieved millions of impressions directly through our outdoor ad campaign, social media ad campaign, our flyer distribution and all the indirect and unplanned outreach by other activists in a wonderfully collaborative effort.

If you need any additional information, or have questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to Nigel.

Best regards!
THE DAIRY-TRUTH TEAM!