This holiday season, Grey London has teamed up with PETA to deliver a strikingly provocative message about animal cruelty. Their latest campaign, titled Happy Christmassacre, transforms the familiar warmth of an every-family Christmas meal into a chilling spectacle. While the table is laden with festive delights and conversations about everyday life flow, the twist is hard to miss: the family slowly becomes splattered with blood.
The campaign highlights the staggering number of animals slaughtered during the Christmas season. Directed by David Shane of O Positive, the cinema commercial, along with OOH and social executions, urges audiences to choose compassion over cruelty by going vegan for the holidays. While December is often associated with joy, generosity, and celebration, millions of animals meet a grim fate to fill festive dinner tables.
In the OOH campaign, traditional holiday symbols are reimagined through a confrontational lens. Santa’s iconic red and white suit, for example, is replaced with unsettling close-ups of stained animal pelts, forcing viewers to confront the reality behind the season’s indulgences. These visuals aim to disrupt the comforting festive narrative and spark reflection.
The campaign will run in UK cinemas and across global digital platforms, with Germany, the UK, and the US as key social markets. London will see particularly bold OOH activations, including guerilla-style fly postings, ensuring the message reaches a broad audience in unexpected spaces.
Helen Rhodes, Grey London’s Chief Creative Officer, said, “We wanted to shine a light on that dark festive tradition and expose the quiet, normalized savagery at millions of dinner tables.” David Shane added that, despite the serious message, filming was unexpectedly hilarious as the cast struggled not to laugh while being sprayed with fake blood. With its mix of shock, humor, and social commentary, the campaign leaves one message clear: this Christmas, choose compassion.
