Great post, I will also be looking into Michael St Jules comments. Would love to see response from Animal Ask who I think did some thinking on the topic. Do you plan to suspend or evaluate other campaigns, where the impact is not clear-cut (e.g. Jasna Strona Mocy, maybe others)? Can this be interpreted as Anima moving into an even more effectiveness-focused direction?
Thanks for the question, Ula! As the manager of the campaign you mentioned, I felt obliged to answer, and finally got the necessary push to create an account. :)
Just to give some context for those who might be reading this but do not know Jasna Strona Mocy: it was a side outreach campaign targeting audiences that may be hesitant to consider animal suffering as problematic due to cultural or political norms — mostly adjacent to masculinity. It started seven years ago. Sport was identified as the means that would be successful in breaking down stereotypes related to eating meat and masculinity, fitness, health, strength, etc. The campaign started with a series of short documentaries picturing accomplished competition athletes on a vegan or vegetarian diet and (initially) focused on combat sports, strength training and bodybuilding as the disciplines most heavily associated with said stereotypes. The campaign also included events, media collaborations and partnerships with experts — dieticians, athletes, trainers, etc.
So, to answer your question, Ula, we try to evaluate our campaigns on a regular basis. The main limiting factor is scheduling time for meta work when you’re managing a campaign with limited resources. It also has to be properly organized and guided due to a lot of problems, like sunk-cost fallacy or egoistic motivations (in the “worst-case” scenario it may mean losing a job/layoffs, which actually might have been the case for me in this very situation). For example, here, during the restructuring of Anima International, I realized that there were some questions that we hadn’t been asking ourselves and decided to evaluate the campaign and decide on whether we should continue it or not, and if so — in what form. The major takeaways would be:
I would say I agree with the idea behind the campaign and I am 75% sure I would decide to start it again if it was seven years ago. I am 80% confident I would not start it today in the same form, although I still agree that sport is a good medium to tackle norms, such as those related to eating meat or masculinity.
I would say that it was impactful at the beginning and allowed us to start meaningful discussions about plant-based diets in Poland. It has also supported our other interventions, such as those focused on food system transformation, which we consider highly effective.
The major mistake I identified was that long-term decisions were made based on, I assume, a belief that this was a great idea that would certainly work all the time (of course I simplified a lot, it was more complicated than that). What I mean is that, for example, while the short documentaries worked well at the beginning, it was a mistake to assume that the format would continue to be impactful and that it is the best, most effective intervention.
Having evaluated it, I decided to discontinue Jasna Strona Mocy as a separate program with its own dedicated team. We are currently in the process of closing down most of the deployed interventions. However, we will keep using the resources, contacts and the brand we have built when we consider them useful tools to further Anima International’s goals. But truth be told, the major mistake here of Anima International is not doing it earlier.
Great post, I will also be looking into Michael St Jules comments. Would love to see response from Animal Ask who I think did some thinking on the topic.
Do you plan to suspend or evaluate other campaigns, where the impact is not clear-cut (e.g. Jasna Strona Mocy, maybe others)? Can this be interpreted as Anima moving into an even more effectiveness-focused direction?
Thanks for the question, Ula! As the manager of the campaign you mentioned, I felt obliged to answer, and finally got the necessary push to create an account. :)
Just to give some context for those who might be reading this but do not know Jasna Strona Mocy: it was a side outreach campaign targeting audiences that may be hesitant to consider animal suffering as problematic due to cultural or political norms — mostly adjacent to masculinity. It started seven years ago. Sport was identified as the means that would be successful in breaking down stereotypes related to eating meat and masculinity, fitness, health, strength, etc. The campaign started with a series of short documentaries picturing accomplished competition athletes on a vegan or vegetarian diet and (initially) focused on combat sports, strength training and bodybuilding as the disciplines most heavily associated with said stereotypes. The campaign also included events, media collaborations and partnerships with experts — dieticians, athletes, trainers, etc.
So, to answer your question, Ula, we try to evaluate our campaigns on a regular basis. The main limiting factor is scheduling time for meta work when you’re managing a campaign with limited resources. It also has to be properly organized and guided due to a lot of problems, like sunk-cost fallacy or egoistic motivations (in the “worst-case” scenario it may mean losing a job/layoffs, which actually might have been the case for me in this very situation). For example, here, during the restructuring of Anima International, I realized that there were some questions that we hadn’t been asking ourselves and decided to evaluate the campaign and decide on whether we should continue it or not, and if so — in what form. The major takeaways would be:
I would say I agree with the idea behind the campaign and I am 75% sure I would decide to start it again if it was seven years ago. I am 80% confident I would not start it today in the same form, although I still agree that sport is a good medium to tackle norms, such as those related to eating meat or masculinity.
I would say that it was impactful at the beginning and allowed us to start meaningful discussions about plant-based diets in Poland. It has also supported our other interventions, such as those focused on food system transformation, which we consider highly effective.
The major mistake I identified was that long-term decisions were made based on, I assume, a belief that this was a great idea that would certainly work all the time (of course I simplified a lot, it was more complicated than that). What I mean is that, for example, while the short documentaries worked well at the beginning, it was a mistake to assume that the format would continue to be impactful and that it is the best, most effective intervention.
Having evaluated it, I decided to discontinue Jasna Strona Mocy as a separate program with its own dedicated team. We are currently in the process of closing down most of the deployed interventions. However, we will keep using the resources, contacts and the brand we have built when we consider them useful tools to further Anima International’s goals. But truth be told, the major mistake here of Anima International is not doing it earlier.