Written by Alisa Mullins
Ravens weren't the only winning animals in Super Bowl XLVII. Great apes finally got a reprieve when CareerBuilder at long last decided to stop dressing up chimpanzees in business suits and featuring them in ads about immature coworkers. The ads were unintentionally ironic, since the chimpanzees truly were immature, as in babies. Thank the football gods that CareerBuilder decided to retire those idiotic ads before Ray Lewis got his first hip replacement.
In fact, no great apes were used in any Super Bowl commercial this year, the first year since all the top 10 U.S. advertising agencies pledged never to use great apes in their advertising after meeting with PETA.
As shown in PETA's video exposé, narrated by Anjelica Huston, great apes are torn away from their mothers shortly after birth and are beaten in order to force them to perform. Once they get too powerful and dangerous to control, they are often discarded at dismal roadside zoos.
Great apes weren't the only animals given the day off. Most of the exotic animals featured in the Super Bowl ads were computer generated, not that the average viewer could tell the difference. It makes a big difference to the animals, though, when advertisers opt for realistic computer-generated imagery and animatronic stand-ins and refrain from subjecting real animals to the rigors and abuse of training both on the set and off.
During a PETA undercover investigation of a facility that trains big cats, we documented that the animals were deprived of food, dragged by chains around their necks, hit in the face, and smashed over the head with ax handles. When they're not being forced to perform, exotic animals are confined almost constantly to cages and chains.
If this Super Bowl is any indication, cutting-edge companies seem to be recognizing that compassionate customers are turned off by animal abuse and will tune out cruel ads—because the only squirrel dance that we want to see during the Super Bowl features a burly linebacker.
Written by Michelle Kretzer
If you saw CareerBuilder's latest Super Bowl ad, you probably thought it was as lame as we did, which is why we came up with an ad of our own in response. Unfortunately, we received a "thanks, but no thanks" from Clear Channel Outdoor in CareerBuilder's hometown of Chicago, after we asked to place this billboard near a CareerBuilder vice president's neighborhood:
While we may not have gotten the billboard placed, at least we're not feeling like Tom Brady and the Pats today.
With your help, not even the Giants defense could stop us from telling CareerBuilder to can the cruel chimpanzee ads.
As usual, the commercial lineup during Super Bowl XLVI featured some real dogs—and we're not just talking about CareerBuilder's tired old re-tread of the "immature chimpanzees" storyline. Yes, the chimpanzees are immature—that's because they're babies who should be with their mothers, not being forced to perform tricks for an ass-backwards company's cruel and unimaginative Super Bowl ad.
As for the dogs, I'm also referring to the actual dogs who appeared in many of this year's Super Bowl ads, including Bud Light's real-life rags-to-riches rescued mutt, Weego, who tirelessly fetches beers every time someone utters Bud's slogan, "Here we go!" "He's a rescue," proclaims Weego's proud guardian, and the ad ends with a plea to visit Bud Light's "Help Rescue Dogs" Facebook page.
We have to throw a penalty flag on Skechers for promoting greyhound racing in its ad featuring a sneakers-clad French bulldog. The ad was trying to be cute, but greyhound racing, with its legions of abandoned, shot, and starved ex-racers, is about as ugly as it gets.
Hyundai fumbled when it used a real cheetah in its ad. Wild animals used for ads often spend most of their lives confined to cages or chains and may be routinely beaten in order to "show them who's boss." Hyundai should have taken a cue from fellow carmaker Kia, whose ad starred a lifelike computer-generated rhinoceros (not to mention a very animated—but not animatronic—Tommy Lee).
Animatronics and CGI technology are so good that it can be hard to tell the real animals from the robots, which is why there's no excuse for dragging real chimpanzees, cheetahs, or other wildlife onto a sound stage.
Written by Jeff Mackey
PETA has named CareerBuilder the 2012 "Ass-Backwards" Corporation of the Year. The job-search company earned this (dis)honor for proving that it's obliviously behind the times, having decided to run yet another Super Bowl ad that features exploited infant chimpanzees—even though it knows how great apes suffer at the hands of the "entertainment" industry.
Face: © iStockphoto.com/Dogan Eskiyoruk • Body: © iStockphoto.com/Eric Isselée • Trophy: © iStockphoto.com/DNY59
Nine of the top 10 ad agencies in the U.S. have already committed never to use great apes in their ads, as have many major corporations, including CareerBuilder's main competitor, Monster. Yet CareerBuilder proves that it's creatively and ethically bankrupt by continuing to rely on the same cruel and played-out tactic year after year.
Chimpanzees used in the entertainment industry are torn away from their mothers, beaten and brutally trained behind the scenes to make them compliant on the set, and discarded—usually at unaccredited roadside zoos (or otherwise warehoused in appalling conditions)—when they become too strong to be handled safely.
CareerBuilder executives know all this—because PETA and its supporters have told them so repeatedly—and they also know that computer-generated imagery would allow them to create the same ads without causing animals to suffer. Yet they continue to run these irresponsible ads again and again.
Because of CareerBuilder's willingness to ignore animals' suffering and the well-founded concerns of a large percentage of its potential audience, PETA has bestowed upon the company the distinction of being 2012's "Ass-Backwards" Corporation of the Year!
After learning that CareerBuilder is once again using baby chimpanzees in a Super Bowl ad, Anjelica Huston has teamed up with PETA to urge the company's CEO, Matt Ferguson, to stop using chimpanzees in its commercials—unless they are created using cutting-edge computer animation, like the conscientious folks behind Pfizer's Robitussin "orangutan" ads and the movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes have done, saving animals from being taken away from their families, cruelly trained, and then abandoned when they can no longer be controlled.
Anjelica—soon to be seen in NBC's Smash—has been a strong supporter of PETA's campaigns to end the use of chimpanzees and other great apes who are forced to work as "performers" in films and on television. In her letter, the Oscar-winning actor, well, smashes CareerBuilder's excuses, pointing out that monitoring on-set action doesn't prevent the cruelty that happens before and after the ad is shot, as described in the video Anjelica narrated for PETA on the subject.
As Anjelica's letter to Ferguson states, "It is astonishing that you are unmoved by the videos, photographs, and case reports of what befalls these animals from the moment they are taken from their mothers to the moment they die." Let's hope he finally gets the message and that this will be the last year that the big game will be interrupted by images of real baby chimpanzees performing stupid tricks in a sad attempt to appeal to clueless job-seekers.
Written by PETA
After years of using primates in its television spots, Capital One has informed PETA that it will stop airing its current ad featuring a chimpanzee and that it will not use primates in future advertisements.
Capital One's decision comes after PETA provided the company with information on how great apes used in advertising are ripped away from their mothers as babies and physically and psychologically abused during training. When they grow too big and strong to be safely handled, they are often discarded at seedy roadside zoos and pseudo-sanctuaries.
Capital One told PETA, "We believe you have made profound and compelling arguments about the treatment of primates."
Of the top 15 U.S. ad agencies, 10 refuse to use great apes in their ads. And every new national ad featuring great apes in 2010 was either pulled or modified when the companies learned about the cruelty associated with using wild animals as "actors." Now, please help us keep the pressure on CareerBuilder, which once again exploited chimpanzees for its 2011 Super Bowl ad and says that it intends to continue to use these animals.
Written by Michelle Sherrow
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
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