The making of the UK’s first anti-dairy TV and cinema advert

Earlier this year, we launched our biggest campaign yet, raising awareness of the terror inherent in dairy production. A big part of the campaign was a bold new advert, which was shown on primetime television and in cinemas nationwide – a first for both Animal Aid, and the UK! 

The making of…

The concept began with the word “voiceless” and how many people perceive animals as being unable to speak. Of course, that isn’t true – anyone who’s witnessed a dairy calf be forcibly removed from their mother, so that her milk can be taken for human consumption instead, will know that these sensitive, gentle animals do indeed have voices. They don’t need us to speak for them; we need to listen. You can watch the final TV and cinema here or scroll down for the uncensored version! 

But not everything we wanted to show made the final cut… 

“Too political” 

To get our advert aired, it first had to be approved by advertising body Clearcast. The first hurdle was being told that Animal Aid, as an organisation, was “too political” to advertise on television because a small part of what we do is to lobby the government for better animal protections. After much back-and-forth and submitting countless documents, we managed to challenge this, and it was onto the next stage of getting the visuals approved… 

We knew from the very beginning that we would be restricted visually and that many practices, like dehorning or artificial insemination, could never be shown – despite being routine across the dairy industry and totally legal! But most surprising was the restriction of the words we could use: 

• We could not say “Dairy cows suffer for the milk we drink” 
• We could not say that calves are taken from their mothers “after birth” 
• We could not use our campaign tagline “the terror on our tables is far from the story we’re fed” due to concerns that this would implicate advertisers for allowing the farming industry to use misleading imagery and marketing spiel. Essentially, that advertisers themselves might be part of the problem.

While we’re incredibly proud of the advert we produced, the process was a stark reminder that while the farming industry can continue to pedal misinformation, we were unable to share the full extent of animal suffering with the public. We were asked to substantiate that every single dairy cow “suffer[s] for the milk we drink” – we wonder if industry giants like Müller and Marshfield have to substantiate that every single cow is “well cared for” and “happy”*? 

*Claims taken from Müller and Marshfield websites, respectively, on 24 March 2025. 

Listen to the original voiceover below

What didn’t make the final cut? 

One particularly poignant clip (pictured above) shows a dairy cow lying in a barren, concrete cubicle with heavy, distended udders protruding from between her legs. We know this to be the typical body score of a modern dairy cow, who is pushed to produce such unnatural quantities of milk that her udders become sore, heavy, and prevent her from sitting or standing comfortably. Her experience was censored. 

Now that the advert has reached 14 million viewers across Channel 4 and Sky, and a further 1.2 million cinemagoers, we’re sharing the exclusive original cut complete with the footage and language we weren’t allowed to use: