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PETA Urges Company to Pull Ads in Light of Behind-the-Scenes Beatings and Suffering of Social, Smart Apes
For Immediate Release: January 31, 2011
Contact: David Perle 757-622-7382
Atlanta -- Holding signs that read, "I Don't Want to Be in Your DAMN AD," two PETA members in chimpanzee costumes will lead a protest outside CareerBuilder Technology Headquarters in Norcross on Tuesday. What's the primates' point? That infant great apes used in the movies, TV, and advertising are torn away from their loving mothers prematurely and beaten into submission with pool cues and slap jacks to make them obey trainers' commands. They are forced to spend their lives in cages and on sets, leaving them lonely, confused, and neurotic.
When: Tuesday, February 1, 8 a.m.
Where: CareerBuilder Technology Headquarters, 5550-A Peachtree Pkwy., Norcross
"Great apes don't belong in ads any more than career consultants belong in trees—although in this case, that's where the career consultants belong," says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. "We're asking CareerBuilder to look at the evidence and pull this slave labor rather than making a monkey out of itself."
Common, well-documented training methods include beatings that instill fear in young primates. A primatologist who spent 14 months working at a California facility that trained chimpanzees for the TV and movie industries saw trainers kick, punch, and beat young chimpanzees in order to make them obedient. By age 8, chimpanzees become too strong for trainers to control and are often sent to live in squalid cages in roadside zoos or end up in experiments.
CareerBuilder's biggest competitor, Monster, has made the kind decision not to use great apes in ads. Many other companies—including Dodge, Verizon Wireless, Gap Inc., Levi Strauss & Co., Johnson & Johnson, Europcar, Samsung, Yahoo!, and Honda—have all pulled ads that featured great apes or pledged never to feature great apes in future ads.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.