The World’s First Really Live Pig Feed

Background

Compassion in World Farming aimed to replace cruel factory farming with higher welfare free-range farming.

In 2012 their campaign became par- Product ticularly relevant when the horsemeat

Charity/Fundraising scandal hit the headlines. People (especially in cities) felt more alien- ated than ever from the food they ate.

So CIWF wanted an impactful way to Media reconnect people with the animals that produce their food, demonstrating the benefits of free range farming.

Idea

Because pigs are among the most entertaining and intelligent farm animals there are, the idea was to invite shoppers in London to use their smartphones to feed live Tamworth pigs on a free-range country farm.

50-second films advertised the twice- a-day feeding times, when shoppers at Westfield Shopping Centre in West London were linked via an interactive billboard to Wren Davis Farm in Buckinghamshire. 

The interactive screen at Westfield was not just one of the most high-impact billboard sites in London, its location among Eat Street’s restaurants made it the perfect way to draw people’s attention to their food choices while they ate.

When shoppers connected to the ‘Live Pig Feed’ wi-fi and donated £1 to buy their food, they could then use their phone’s accelerometer to ‘throw’ the apples.

The app activated the feed machine at the farm, which then launched an apple towards the pigs, who munched it happily.

Apple throwers were thanked personally on the big screen and were able to share the ‘thank you’ via Facebook to spread the word further. 

Results

During the campaign:

• 5,000 apples were thrown to the pigs over five days.
• 500,000 people saw the screen.
• 28% increase in traffic to the charity’s website.
• £12,465 more than usual was raised in donations.
• Awareness of the organisation increased significantly. 

Our Thoughts

This poster site has featured several times in Directory. It is one of only a handful of ‘super-sites’, which are fully wired to allow for active involvement of passers-by.

If we are in the business of ‘creating ideas people want to be part of’ (as Dale Gall, CEO of Profero, insists we should be) then interactive billboards should proliferate.

Rather than show pictures of glum animals, congratulations to Elvis for an idea that gives us happy pigs in an idea that affirms the positive values of CIWF.

One small moan. Why is it always charities who get talked into doing new things like this? Why isn’t Magners, for instance, doing something with apple-throwing?

Why do so many marketers keep doing the same-old same-old?