Animal rights charity PETA is encouraging audiences to go vegan this Christmas in a new campaign that exposes the cruelty hiding behind Christmas cheer.

The campaign titled ‘Happy Christmassacre’ has been created in partnership with Grey London. It urges people to go vegan this festive season and choose a cruelty-free Christmas. 

At the heart of the campaign, a hard-hitting film depicts a familiar scene of a family eating Christmas dinner with a twist. The darkly comic spot, directed by David Shane at O Positive, shows the quintessential family Christmas before transforming into a horror-inspired depiction of the hidden violence behind the feast. As the family tuck into their dinner and engage in festive conversation, blood splatters onto their faces. 

The bold creative hijacks the familiar warmth of Christmas and turns it into something disturbingly revealing. PETA aims to remind audiences that while December is a time of generosity, millions of animals will be slaughtered and served at the dinner table.

“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,” explains Helen Rhodes, Chief Creative Officer, Grey London.

David Shane, Director, O Positive, added: “It’s such a strong and simple idea. We’re all complicit, right? Most of us kind of turn a willful 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.” 

The campaign makes use of traditional festive imagery and flips it on its head with dark humour. Out of home iterations of the campaign replace Santa’s red and white suit with close ups of stained animal pelts to flip the subvert a long-associated festive image of generosity.

The campaign will run across cinema, social and OOH channels throughout the holiday season 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.

Amid the festive ad flurry, PETA’s message punctures the warm and fuzzy to encourage people to go further with their generosity.