UP : Gag Big Ag

Big Ag (big agriculture) has big budgets, and its advertising is everywhere. From fast-food billboards to supermarket campaigns, we’re constantly encouraged to eat more meat and dairy, while the reality behind their production is rarely part of the picture.

Adfree Cities asked us to create a campaign that would cut through the noise, and challenge the polished image of industrial farming on our streets.

We started with the name: Gag Big Ag

Short, memorable and deliberately irreverent, it captures the campaign’s central idea… if Big Ag controls the story through advertising, it’s time to take away the microphone.

From there, we developed a bold visual identity and tone of voice designed to work across everything from street-level interventions to social content.

From the street to the screen

We developed the campaign across multiple channels, including:

Campaign identity:
Name, visual identity, messaging and creative direction.

Website:
A campaign hub explaining the issues behind factory farming advertising and giving people practical ways to get involved.

Video:
Short-form films bringing the campaign message to life and designed to work across social channels.

Social media:
A suite of attention-grabbing content, from provocative questions and statistics to campaign interventions and explainers.

Outdoor & street activity:
Creative interventions that take the campaign directly into the spaces dominated by Big Ag advertising. This intervention below highlights Pret’s ‘Frankenchickens’: factory-farmed chickens bred to grow so fast that many of them can barely walk. Find out more about our bespoke 3D printed chickens.

Making space for better choices

The campaign isn’t just about what’s wrong with factory farming. It’s about questioning who gets to shape the choices we see every day.

By challenging the advertising that promotes industrially farmed meat and dairy, Gag Big Ag aims to make space for a food system that works better for people, animals, farmers and the planet.

A city leading the way

Amsterdam has already shown that change is possible. In May 2026, the Dutch capital became the first capital city in the world to ban meat advertising in public spaces, removing ads from billboards, public transport and other city-controlled spaces.

Now Hackney is following suit. The council has pledged to end advertising for meat and dairy on council-owned land — a move that would make it the first UK local authority to introduce this kind of restriction. It’s a significant step towards changing what we see, and what gets normalised, on our streets.

This is where Gag Big Ag moves from campaign to action: challenging the advertising that promotes factory farming, and showing councils across the UK that they can do things differently.

See the campaign:
gagbigag.org.uk