V-Face Asks Meat-Eaters to Give Animals a Break in First Ever Ad Campaign

V-Face, Dublin’s first Vegan Burger bar has today launched a localised out-of-home and social ad campaign. V-Face which first started as a pop-up in a Stoneybatter pub in 2019, opened the doors of their unique vegan restaurant in 2020.

The restaurant experience can be summed up in the tagline 'Animal burgers, made from plants.' Their menu is 100% vegan and serves everything from hot dogs, to a vegan take on the Big Mac and cauliflower wings. They have toasties, loaded fries, salad bowls, sweet treats and soya milkshakes to boot.

This isn’t just a restaurant for diehard vegans (though all are welcome), it’s somewhere carnivores can dip their toe and omnivores can devour the menu.

Instead of using vegan advertising’s typical shock tactics to dissuade meat consumption, this new campaign by The Public House takes a more light-hearted approach, imagining what animals get up to in their free time when you give them a break and choose a vegan alternative to your typical hot dogs, burgers, and nuggets. It aims to convince people to try a less guilty (but still a bit guilty) plant-based fast-food alternative. And the timing of the campaign couldn’t be better, with lots of meat-eaters giving Veganuary a go as a quasi-New Year’s resolution. 

Head of strategy at The Public House, Sarah Walsh said, “Flexitarian diets are quickly becoming the norm for Irish consumers, so it makes sense to reflect that intention in our work rather than the more hard line approach commonly used to promote veganism. There is plenty of space for character and humour in this category and that’s why we loved teaming up with V-Face.”

Sarah Boland, managing director of V-Face said of the work, “I loved working with The Public House on this campaign. It was important for me to see the V-Face brand in the final execution and it definitely radiates here. At the end of the day we're not ordering people to give up meat. It's more of a friendly message which we hope welcomes everyone through our doors. We chose January to release the campaign as Veganuary is when we see lots of people dipping their toes into veganism for the first time, and we're here for it!"

Mikey Curran, associate creative director, The Public House said, “This is a fun campaign for a very fun brand. A downward hog, a cow busting a move and a hen party are more than just quirky ‘what-ifs’, they allow V-Face to align their brand with a much larger customer base. Our January launch was intentional too, a lot of people will have resolved to try veganism this month. A visit to V-Face won’t break any rules, but will let those people treat themselves.”

The campaign for The Public House kicks off a new year of work, following a successful 2022 with the growing independent creative agency’s clients including Jameson and EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, FBD and Paddy Power. The agency is known for its strategic rigour and creative edge that delivers for its clients, with a principle that ‘Boring Doesn’t Sell’.