TOFURKY® ENCOURAGES EMPATHY FOR FARMED TURKEYS {Brand Action}
An appropriate brand would sponsor a short, tactful and informative social-media film about what existence is really like for the common farmed turkey. While such a piece could be handled myriad ways, our vision and recommendation would be to stay objective, communicate the facts, and totally refrain from shaming farmers, meat eaters or the Thanksgiving holiday itself. But at the same time, this idea would face the situation and do important work to let people know what hundreds of millions of turkeys go through each year. It would help us open our hearts and connect with these feathered animals as nothing less than the amazing, feeling, sensitive and sentient beings that they are. To show their day to day circumstances as they’re raised and fattened up fast, to be slaughtered and wrapped in plastic.
Consider the Turkey
As per a recent internet post from Real Simple: “According to the National Turkey Federation, an estimated 88 percent of Americans consume Thanksgiving turkey each year. Per the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), this translates to more than 46 million turkeys eaten on Thanksgiving Day alone. That’s a lot of birds. The USDA also notes that the United States produced more than 5 billion pounds of turkey last year, with more than 4.8 billion pounds of that meat being consumed domestically.”
Consider the Turkey could also set the record straight on “humane washing” marketing language employed by some brands as well – helping to dispel the myths. This is important, for unless we really stop and think about the actual animals themselves, it’s all-too easy to let the inertia of norms and “out of sight/out of mind” dynamics win.
Which brand would be right for such a creation? Tofurky® has been producing its now “iconic” Holiday Roast for more than 25 years – long enough for many vegans and vegetarians to have made it a modern version of a traditional Thanksgiving centerpiece. There are of course many more “alt-meat” brands out there in the last decade that could sponsor an idea like this. But we want to encourage Tofurky to consider it for 2024. Because we can think of no brand better suited.
This campaign would be handled with a gigantic amount of sensitivity and tact. Sharing stats. Helping people connect with the grandeur of this animal. Illuminating its tendencies and wonders, its intelligence and sensitivity. How it prefers to care for its young when living in conditions where it can. Informing to its beauty and sentience. We could point people to other seminal animal-welfare films such as Earthlings and Dominion, but refrain from showing that kind of thing ourselves. Instead, our effort could focus on the heart of the matter: The turkeys. It could raise the question of whether giving thanks and gratitude need *require such violence to five-sense beings very close to us (broccoli, lettuce, wheat and beans don’t run away, cry out in fear or bleed). Now that we’re at “8-billion scale,” the more we can expose the global travesty of unfathomable suffering and damage to the planet, the more we might inspire folks to modify their consumption choices. Such an intitiative may be a scary thing for a company to sponsor. But we say who better than a brand dedicated to the alternative? Let’s talk, Tofurky®.
*If we humans actually required the consumption of animal flesh in order to thrive, this would be another story entirely. But in fact, myriad studies prove we perform better, feel better and live longer on plants alone.