How to get your tasteless TV messages to the public without actually paying for air time

PETA has done it again. By their own recently released records which they are required by law to release, they killed 2200 pets in 2010. That is 94% of the pets entrusted to them.

Since 1998, their body count is 25,840. (That isn’t counting the ones they discarded in the Piggly Wiggly dumpsters.)

Spending part of their $33 million yearly operating budget on veterinary care and marketing to find homes for pets is not their idea of “ethical treatment.” They prefer to spend their money on media campaigns telling the rest of us that eating meat and drinking milk, wearing fur and leather, hunting, fishing, killing mice and flies are all “unethical” while they remain the enemy to our pets.

Part of their strategy is to spend a lot of money on ads that manage to insult the sensibilities of civilized people everywhere. Then they approach the networks to buy time to air them. They know that the ads will be banned from the networks.

Naturally they want to buy at times when happy families are enjoying themselves. Impressionable children are a major target.

While it might seem that they have lost when networks refuse to run their ads, they have really won. This is what they want. Airing their commercials would cost a lot of money, but now they can crank out press releases about how their ads have been censored.

Columnists and editorial writers give them a lot of free lineage, more publicity than they would get it the ads actually ran.

They could easily tone down the ads to get them aired, but that’s not what they are about. Their ads are about telling the public how to live their lives.

Examples ads include:

• A risqué ad they wanted to run during Super Bowl 2009 of horny, scantily clad women fondling vegetables to show that…uh... I’m not sure what the point was.
• An ad they wanted to run during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade of a girl describing how turkeys are supposedly tortured while she is saying grace
• An ad showing a dead man in the morgue clutching a Big Mac, “I was lovin’ it,” with a McDonald’s logo prominently attached to his toe
• An ad showing people with dog size body bags attached to leashes showing that supposedly if we buy a dog, we kill a shelter dog.

A lot of controversy, a lot of exploiting of women, a lot of show business types looking for free publicity, a lot of media exposure for very little money. For such groups there is no such thing as bad publicity. 

Whenever I do a PETA post I invariably get comments and emails from what sound like the sweet, young and naïve trying to re-educate me. So please, Tiffani, Brandi and Madison, et al do some serious research first. Such as this post on the founder of PETA.

Comments

[georgia little pea]

Just read that link you provided. While I know of PETA and am quite familiar with their shock value ads, I never knew of their policy with pets. This is quite bizarre considering their stand on fur and meat eating. Based on your post, if they have ethical issues with killing flies (truly?), it does seem beyond hypocritical. Some buddhists like Jains refrain from killing even tiny insects. I applaud their stand and know how far they go to live this life. I always thought PETA a good cause. I'm now both glad I know more about them, and also a little disillusioned.

Thanks Jan.

[jansfunnyfarm]

We can't stand PETA! Thanks for posting this.

[Pai]

Georgia, it's not hypocritical when you realize that they see animals who live as 'slaves' to humans as our pets, as being tortured by that existence. They believe they are doing 'mercy killings'. They are sick, twisted people.

[BabyRocketDog & Hootie]

Well, I've always thought PETA to be a mess of wackos, but I didn't know about this before. (I was a vegetarian for almost 40 years but never forced it on others...now they just call me a picky eater.) Thanks for the info.
Cassie, BRD and Hootie's human

[Clive]

Thanks for telling us so much about PETA - we would not have been aware of them here in Ireland so much! Horrendous stuff!

[EmilyS]

Many of us have known for years that PETA has never really been about "ethical" anything.

At this point, we should conclude that PETA is primarily about the ego-driven need of its leaders to get attention, at any cost. Newkirk in particularly is clearly some kind of psychotic

[denny]

Speaking of free advertising, I think I'll get some. I have some land for sale in southern Florida, it's a great place for your pets. Just send me your money.

"When you're up to your ass in alligators, it is hard to remember that your original intention is to drain the swamp"

[Karen Friesecke]

Terrierman recently brought some interesting proposed changes to how Canadian Animal Charities are defined. It has the HSUS and PETA crapping in their pants since the law *might* be considered south of the border. The most interesting points..

3. To be charitable, the benefit to humans must always take precedence over any benefit to animals. If a purpose or activity that promotes the welfare of animals harms humans, or has a real potential to cause significant harm to humans, it is likely not charitable.

4. Organizations with one or more political purposes, as well as those with political activities that exceed the legal restrictions, are not eligible for charitable registration.

you can read the entire proposal here
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/chrts-gvng/chrts/plcy/cnslttns/pwcr-eng.html#_Toc276992193

[Jan]

It's hard to believe that an organization like HSUS whose major activity is political lobbying can continue to be thought of as a "charity."

[DogMan]

Another of PETA's stunts is to go to dog shows and release dogs when the owners are away in the ring showing other dogs.