The Client: Sarah Baker, Feet of My People
The Project: Personality-driven copy and content
The Vision: Create a compelling voice of sass, sincerity, and humor to make the conversation around animal rights more accessible to a wide range of people
I’ve always been an animal person (cue the first words of Tiger King: Animal people are nuts). From a young age, I was taught respect, and even affection, for all the creatures around me, from housecats to house spiders. My animal encyclopedia was my Bible. One of my most distinct childhood memories is reading through it in bed, utterly amazed at the diversity of life and invention on the planet. Then, childhood wonder was met with the pain of real world knowledge, as those commercials with Sarah McLachlan’s emotive voice and black-and-white footage of tragically abused pets killed the mood on every channel. As I learned about factory farming and trophy hunting and the animals who went extinct because their habitats were turned into strip malls and parking lots and military bases, I realized that while it was uncomfortable to watch a lion maul an elderly wildebeest on Animal Planet, it was far more confronting to face the way my own species harmed and hunted other creatures.
Sarah Baker, founder of Feet of My People, is also an animal person. When we first met to discuss the brand voice for FoMP, I could hear her passion and purpose as she explained that this was her life’s work. But she didn’t want to go the same route as ASPCA’s despondent commercials or PETA’s aggressive tactics that relied on images of violence and gore to spur people into action. She wanted to use humor, that difficult and delicate form of rhetoric, with a dash of sass, to open up the conversation around the exploitation of animals in our culture. If she used those other modes of persuasion, it would be far too easy for people to write off FoMP as another group of nuts animal people, and so she brilliantly subverted expectations when we developed the brand voice and persona. Her goal was for me to write personality-driven copy and content that inspired people to learn more and join the conversation, balancing the hard truths with a candid warmth. It was absolutely a challenge to find that balance, but I’m glad I took it on, because I love what we co-created.
Services + Scope
—Website Copy
—Content Writing
—Market Research
—Brand Voice Consultation + Development
Excerpt from Planet Earth is a Party
Earth is the only home we have ever known. Yet humans have collectively treated their terrestrial home with all the respect a fraternity brother pays his chapter house. Yeah, the smell of it all is kinda gross, and you wonder how long it’s been since the toilet was last cleaned. While there are other territorial and deadly animals, no other species has reshaped the world the way that humans have. With our pollution, deforestation, factory farming, oil spills, and pipelines, humans have threatened the delicate balance of nature and wreaked havoc on ecosystems all over the planet. Along with the destruction of our home planet, preventable illnesses, depression, anxiety, and cancer have meteorically risen, reducing our quality of life.
If we care about protecting animals and their rights, we also have to care about the health of the water, land, and air that gives them life. Every form of cruelty intersects with other forms, which is why our power to make compassionate choices can have a ripple effect. Making kind, informed decisions about our food, clothing, household purchases, and entertainment can ensure that people, animals, and the environment are all respected and protected. We have to look out for each other. Our choices begin as individual acts, but by sharing stories, actively listening to each other, creating art and humor, and being open, we can start to collectively shift away from old models of oppression and move as a community into a new world of kindness and respect.
Slowly but surely, people are waking up and shaking off the hangover of bad planet etiquette. We’re cleaning up last night’s mess. We’re sobering up to the hard work ahead and taking joy in it. We’re unlearning the ways we were taught to be mindless consumers and destroyers, and we’re learning new ways of being the life of the party. Imagine this: being born on this incredibly diverse planet is a privilege, a responsibility, and an endless celebration of life. And you’re invited.
Working with Kira has been one of the best experiences of my life.
I have been working with her for over a year now and she NEVER disappoints. When Kira and I first talked about what I was looking for she was so patient with me as I tried express what I wanted the voice of my site to sound like. Kira took the time to understand exactly what I was looking for, asking so many questions along the way so she could create the brand voice and persona for my business.
I asked her to take an otherwise ugly topic (animal cruelty) and turn it into something people would want to read about by making the content somewhat sassy and totally engaging. I was literally blown away by what she created. When reading the most important parts of the copy, I cried, I laughed, and I cried some more.
Her writing is so beautiful and deeply touching when it needs to be, funny in all the right places, and powerful the entire time.
She has a true gift and as much as I would like to selfishly keep her to myself, I feel like I would be doing the world a disservice if I didn't tell you to hire her immediately.
— Sarah Baker, Feet of My People