A cinema ad for the vegan charity Viva!, seen in March and April 2025, featured a woman placing her sleeping baby in a cot while a lullaby played. After switching off a lamp, she turned around to see the baby in the cot. A silhouetted figure suddenly
appeared standing over the cot and the room went dark. The woman switched on a light to reveal a man in a suit running a bottle of milk across the bars of the cot, which was now empty. The woman gasped and asked, What have you done with my baby? The man
smiled, revealing misshapen, discoloured teeth, and replied in a low, gravelly voice, You cant keep your baby because we want your milk. The womans scream was cut off and the screen went black. The next scene showed a calf in a pen. The voiceover stated,
Almost every dairy calf is taken from their mother shortly after birth so most of her milk can be sold to us. And what do you think happens to thousands of male babies like this one? The words Dairy is Scary and the Viva! logo appeared on a black screen
accompanied by a loud, metallic noise and the sound of something falling to the floor.
The ASA received 25 complaints, including one from The Dairy Council of Northern Ireland. The complainants challenged whether the ad was
irresponsible, distressing, especially to those that had lost a child, and likely to cause serious or widespread offence.
Viva! said they aimed to raise awareness of standard practices in the dairy industry, particularly the
removal of calves from their mothers shortly after birth. The ad was based on factual information and was intended to inform and encourage ethical choices, not to shock. They cited a survey which found that 59% of respondents did not know that cows must
give birth in order to produce milk.
Viva! said the ad used metaphor and cinematic techniques, rather than graphic imagery, to draw a symbolic comparison between human and animal separation. The character of the bogeyman was a
dramatic device used to prompt empathy. They said it was not intended to trivialise human grief or cause distress to those who had experienced child loss.
ASA Assessment: Complaints upheld
The
CAP Code stated that marketing communications must be prepared with a sense of responsibility to consumers, and must not cause serious or widespread offence, fear or distress without justifiable reason. The fear or distress should not be excessive, and
marketers must not use a shocking claim or image merely to attract attention.
The ad, which drew on conventions of horror films, was classified as suitable for audiences aged 15+ and appeared in cinemas. The ASA acknowledged that
it was surreal and stylised in tone and did not feature graphic imagery. We understood that the approach was intended to encourage viewers to draw a direct emotional parallel between the separation of calves from their mothers and the imagined loss of a
human baby. We considered, however, that while viewers would understand that the ad aimed to raise awareness of animal welfare, the nature of that comparison was likely to be seen as insensitive by many and in particular by those with experience of loss
or trauma around parenthood.
The domestic scene of a mother putting her baby to bed abruptly changed with the arrival of a menacing bogeyman figure standing over the babys cot, and the babys subsequent disappearance. We considered
that the bogeyman character created a strong sense of unease and threat. Although the ad did not depict the baby being harmed, and it was not shown being physically removed, we considered that its disappearance was likely to be seen as shocking and
unsettling. We further considered that the statement You cant keep your baby, in combination with the sudden disappearance of the baby, was likely to be particularly upsetting for viewers with experience of child loss or fertility issues, in particular
because the parallel with dairy industry practices was revealed only in the latter half of the ad. We considered that the late reveal, in combination with the unsettling imagery, was likely to increase the emotional impact and amplify distress. We
considered that the message of the ad did not justify the distress likely to be caused by the approach, in particular to vulnerable audiences.
For those reasons, we concluded that the ad was irresponsible and likely to cause
unjustified distress and serious and widespread offence.
The ad must not appear again in the form complained about.