The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals organization is using a mobile truck in a guerilla marketing effort to serve up a clear message: Why it's time to go vegan.

Sept. 5, 2022 | by Judy Mottl — Editor, RetailCustomerExperience.com & FoodTruckOperator.com

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) organization has been busy this summer using a mobile food truck vehicle to spread a clear message at festivals, fairs and fried chicken restaurants: It's time to go vegan.

The truck's highly visual images — "broilers" crammed into crates on the way to slaughter — have a specific goal: To prompt festival and fair goers, or diners at a chicken-fare food truck or restaurant, to think twice before chomping into a fried chicken leg or breast.

The truck also blares out an audio message to supplant the visual message, a soundtrack of birds' cries.

It's a full-on, guerrilla-marketing campaign, according to a press release, and the truck's slogan, "Hell on Wheels," is concise and hard to miss.

"Hell on Wheels" kicked off a national tour this summer starting at the Taste of Buffalo festival in upstate New York. Other tour stops include the Nashville Hot Chicken Music Festival and the Memphis Chicken & Beer Festival in Tennessee and restaurants serving chicken from St. Louis to Chicago, to Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Baltimore, to name just a few locations.

From the moment it launched the truck has grabbed big attention from adults to children. That's not surprising as Americans eat 1 million chickens an hour, according to PETA. The campaign "confronts people with the horrific suffering endured by birds who end up as their chicken sandwiches and Buffalo wings, reminding them that the kindest meal is a vegan one, PETA EVP Tracy Reiman said in the release.

Protecting chickens was the 42-year-old organization's initial effort in 1980 when it formed and organized the first World Day for Laboratory Animals protest in the U.S. and the first demonstration against chicken slaughter at Arrow Live Poultry, which was subsequently closed, in Washington, D.C. PETA is the largest animal rights organization in the world, and PETA entities have more than 9 million members and supporters globally.

Food Truck Operator reached out to PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman for more insight on the "Hells on Wheels" effort. Here is the edited excerpt from the email interview.

Q. Is this the first time this mobile marketing strategy has been undertaken and aimed at visiting local food fests?

A. For decades PETA has visited food festivals, state fairs and targeted meat-heavy restaurants in various ways with billboards, airplane and boat banners, ads on ferries and bicycle rickshaws, fly posters and more. It is why vegan food has become such a hot ticket. However, this is the first time we've done this sort of guerilla activism in this way. Billions of sentient, feeling, intelligent chickens are violently slaughtered for food in the U.S. every year after a miserable life on crowded, filthy factory farms where they are bred to grow so large so quickly that their legs often collapse underneath them. A picture is worth a thousand words, and we know that once people see the suffering they are causing every time they sit down to eat a chicken, they will stop and think, and ultimately go vegan. Q. Regarding the tour stops what was the reasoning to choose particular events?

A. The Hell on Wheels tour launched at the Taste of Buffalo food festival in Buffalo on July 8 and will continue to drive home the important message that chickens are not food throughout the country, making appearances near various food festivals, Chick-fil-A restaurants and busy downtown areas. We target large events where we can confront consumers who are already thinking about what they will eat — we want them to think about who they will eat and choose vegan instead. Everyone can head to PETA.org for delicious free vegan recipes and to find out where PETA's "Hell on Wheels" is headed to next. The truck will travel the country indefinitely.

Q. Is the goal to educate diners about what they're doing when they eat chicken? And are you trying to get the message to food truck operators as well in terms of having them change their menus?

A. PETA's Hell on Wheels traveling chicken truck is making people stop for a moment to think about the suffering that chickens go through before they end up on grocery store shelves and restaurant menus, and yes, food trucks, every year. We invite everyone — consumers and restaurateurs alike — to add vegan chicken and other vegan options to meals and their offerings. Veganism has skyrocketed in popularity, so it has never been clearer that the public is looking for healthy and delicious meat-free options that no animals had to suffer and die for. With incredible options like Gardein's Ultimate Chicken, Beyond Meat's Beyond Chicken and Nuggs, and dozens of other delicious vegan meats, we can still enjoy the dishes we love, but without the cruelty or cholesterol.

Q. What was the response at the first or second stops? I expect many festival organizers may not be receptive.

A. From New York to Nashville, PETA's "Hell on Wheels" has captivated people's attention everywhere we've gone. While there are always a few who are not ready to "meet their meat" (including a gentleman who kicked our truck in Buffalo!), the majority of those who catch even a glimpse of our life-size chicken truck are horrified to learn that most chickens killed for their flesh live their entire lives inside cramped, filthy sheds before being crammed onto open air transport trucks and driven to slaughter where they're hung upside down and their throats are slit while they're still conscious. Eating meat is completely unnecessary, and we can all help end the needless violence and killing of intelligent, feeling chickens by simply going vegan.

Q. Does PETA plan to do similar marketing campaigns relating to cows or sheep or meat in general?

A. Our provocative "I'm ME, Not Meat" campaign has been running for over five years and features many different species: chickens, cows, pigs, fishes, crabs, lobsters, and recently we took over an entire BART station. PETA's purpose is to stop animal suffering and end speciesism, so whether it is through guerilla marketing, demonstrations, undercover investigations or ground-breaking litigation, PETA will continue to use all opportunities to reach millions with powerful messages. Anyone interested in saving animals can start today by heading to PETA.org.

Judy Mottl is editor of Retail Customer Experience and Food Truck Operator. She has decades of experience as a reporter, writer and editor covering technology and business for top media including AOL, InformationWeek and InternetNews.

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