Key Recommendations

People look at the world differently depending on what role they are in at any given moment. The values people focus on in their roles as consumers (personal freedom, consumer choice, and autonomy) do not lead them to support the goals of animal advocates. We can gain broader support by engaging with the public in their role as voters. In this role, they consider the interests of others and are open to the possibility of collective change guided by the government.

In messaging, advocates should avoid references to personal responsibility such as by eating vegan, you save x animals, y gallons of water, and z tons of methane. (An alternative would be ending the farming of animals is one vital solution we need in order to limit warming to 1.5°C.) Advocates should also think about how to create specific asks of the public which engage them as citizens, such as voting for ballot measures or animal-friendly political candidates.

The most common way people dismiss our message is futility, saying things will never change. In their role as consumers, change seems impossible. Advocates must actively work to create a more productive narrative to compete with the consumer frame.

One way is to use the metaphor of society evolving. Describing society evolving together away from farming animals helped our study participants imagine a gradual transition at the societal level, whereas previously they could only hear advocate messaging as a demand to go vegan immediately. The evolution metaphor also conjures progress and modernity, helping suppress counter-arguments based on nature and tradition. Here’s an example:

We’re calling for an evolution away from meat at the societal level, where consumers, food producers, restaurants, and grocery stores work together to replace meat from animals and fishes with animal-free foods. We can protect animals and the environment using traditional staples like beans and vegetables along with innovative meat alternatives.

Relatability and trustworthiness are the most important qualities people look for in messengers when hearing about animal issues. This is largely connected to their defensiveness. People hear even the most gentle animal advocate messages as harshly judgmental. And the truth is, the issue of farming has less to do with facts and more to do with moral values.

Messengers who explicitly mention that they still eat meat are able to overcome defensiveness. Meat-eating messengers make it clear that they are not condemning the listener, because they themselves are still engaged in the same behavior. These messengers show that it is possible to be an active supporter of the goal of ending animal farming regardless of your diet in the short term.

The power of the meat-eating messenger is enabling the audience to imagine themselves identifying with the cause. We found that the most effective meat-eating messengers belong to the demographics not typically associated (in the public imagination) with meat reduction and animal rights: older people, people of color, men, and working-class people. We recommend using meat-eaters from these demographics to deliver animal advocacy messages.

Many people personally believe their meat is sourced from small farms. Labels such as “cage-free” and “free range” are controversial: some consumers have high confidence in them, while others consider them meaningless.

The fantasy of the small family farm is widespread, but it is vulnerable. Advocates should attack this humane deception directly. Spread the word that “it is no secret” that 99% of animals are raised in factory farms and that cage-free conditions are inhumane. (When shown images and descriptions of conditions in a cage-free egg farm, most people find them repellent.)

While there is a need to continue to spread information about the ethical and environmental harms of animal farming, advocates should make room in their messaging strategy for directly addressing common rationalizations. When we don’t engage with these objections, we risk being seen as out of touch.

See this table for a list of the most common rationalizations and suggestions for how to overcome them.

Empathy is an effective strategy for overcoming defensiveness. When advocates encounter common rationalizations, rather than immediately jumping into a rebuttal, we have an opportunity to respond with curiosity and connection.

Try asking questions and identifying the values underpinning the objection. There’s a good chance we can connect with those values. Affirming their importance is a way to show the public that we are regular citizens sharing their common values. Then let them know about the universal values underpinning our position. In our research, participants would often talk themselves out of a rationalization if they were given empathy for the underlying values.

The affordability and accessibility of animal-free foods are among the public’s top concerns. Advocate messages that fail to address these issues are seen as out of touch.

This presents an opportunity for advocates. Policy demands that specifically address the affordability and accessibility of alternatives to animal meat sit at the intersection of advocate and public concerns. These demands can show the public that we care about their immediate economic reality as well as about animal suffering.

One of the most common responses we heard to test messages was that advocates should use less emotion and instead “focus on facts and data.” However, when facts were presented, people expressed skepticism, questioning the methods as well as the intentions and funding sources of the researchers producing them.

The strongest messages include some kind of numerical fact, along with a citation where readers can investigate the data themselves. The most effective numerical facts make an explicit comparison between how things are now and how they could be if society evolved beyond using animals for food.

Another common objection to advocate messages is that emotionally elevated language is seen as manipulative or hysterical. At the same time, emotional connection is necessary to make the issue relevant. The challenge for advocates is to create that emotional connection without being seen as emotionally manipulative.

We can start by pruning excessive emotional language from their messages. Make scant use of adverbs, avoid absolute statements, and opt for less emotionally charged synonyms to seem more credible. Trust that the plain facts of the situation are tragic enough.

We recommend every advocacy organization bring even more attention to screening their messages for words and phrases that are unfamiliar to the general public. For instance, we tested one message from an advocacy organization that mentioned a “deadpile” inside a pig farm. While this seems obviously to refer to a pile of dead pigs, many people trip on this word, expressing confusion followed by frustration about the uncertain meaning of the word instead of engaging with the content of the message.

Run your messages by people with no connection to the movement to detect jargon.

Advocates should be cautious with health-based arguments. These arguments may suppress systemic thinking and erode support for policy interventions, and some research suggests they aren’t even persuasive for consumer change.

Advocates using health messaging to build support for policy interventions can focus their messages on public health, using statistics about collective rather than individual harm (such as the number of deaths per year associated with meat consumption). We also recommend discussing food deserts to remind people about systemic factors affecting health.

For the base (the friendlist ¼ to ⅓ of society), animal- and environment-centered messages were seen as mutually reinforcing. These people are willing to base their consumer habits and their political views on the best interests of the many.

The large persuadable middle, meanwhile, is unmoved by altruistic messages. For them, the key is to activate disgust. Fortunately, moral disgust is closely tied to other kinds of disgust, so images of the conditions in factory farms reduce meat appetite and increase approval for meat reduction policies.

The most radical proposal on the table shapes what people se as reasonable. This is a great opportunity for animal advocates. Whatever policy objectives the movement wishes to enact in the short term, we should ensure that significantly more ambitious proposals are in the public’s awareness and are even being actively pursued.

The radical element does not need to throw molotov cocktails (or even cans of soup) to make moderate demands seem reasonable. Using compassionate messages and working within the bounds of the law to advance a radical proposal (for instance, through a ballot measure) should suffice to create the desired effect, even if advocates privately doubt that the policy has any chance of being enacted soon.

The media is much more sympathetic to our narrative than to our opponents’ narratives. Broadly speaking, journalists and media outlets accept that farming animals is creating serious problems that need to be addressed. They do not yet accept that animal suffering alone should be a sufficient reason to completely end animal farming, but they aren’t far from that conclusion.

Animal advocates can rely on the media to communicate the impact of animal farming on the climate. When giving quotes to the media, advocates’ focus should be on animal suffering and the need to end animal farming completely.

Some counterproductive narratives still exist in the media that can be addressed through education. When engaging with journalists, advocates should proactively educate them about the infeasibility of small-scale methods like “regenerative agriculture” and advocates’ reasons for focusing on changes to law and policy rather than individual consumer change.