Finding Common Ground: Animal Welfare Messaging

How can you keep vegans on board with lobbying efforts to incrementally improve welfare standards for systems they’ve chosen to boycott? Let’s apply common ground messaging theory to answer this question.

• Triggers: Ethical vegans recognize that cruelty exists in even the ‘best’ systems. Anything that could be read as an endorsement of animal production may be jarring.
• Common ground: This audience wants to see cruel production systems eliminated.
• What to avoid: Economic arguments and mentions of higher welfare systems could be misinterpreted as endorsements of the status quo.
• What to highlight: Maintain focus on eliminating the target production system, give context to immediate goals by framing them in the bigger picture, and draw attention to the animals whose suffering can be eased.

More examples

Here are some other scenarios where common ground theory can help make messaging more impactful and inclusive:

• Meat reduction messaging
• Simultaneously catering to old and new supporters

From: Find common ground