BBDO New York Wins PETA Award for Using Animatronic Animals in TV Ads

Fake 'Fiddling Beaver' Ad Is Memorable and Leaves Real Animals Unharmed

For Immediate Release:
March 29, 2010

Contact:
Julia Gallucci 757-622-7382

New York -- For making the compassionate decision never to use great apes in ads and for substituting animatronic technology and stock footage for captive animals in recent TV commercials, BBDO New York has won PETA's Humane Ad Agency Award.

The company's ad for Monster.com, which played during the 2010 Super Bowl, uses animatronics to portray a fiddling beaver who finds work using the employment Web site. Another recent BBDO ad for GE features footage of snow monkeys undisturbed in their natural environment and an animatronic monkey "hand."

"By using humane alternatives to animal 'actors,' BBDO New York is making both a compassionate choice and a sound business decision," says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. "More and more consumers are calling for the humane treatment of animals, and they want to patronize businesses that endorse similar values."

Wild animals used in the entertainment industry are often subjected to rigorous and abusive training methods--including beatings, the use of electric prods, and food deprivation--in order to force them to perform meaningless tricks. Undercover investigations have revealed that great apes are torn away from their mothers as infants and often endure violent beatings. They are typically confined to barren cages when they are not "working" and are often passed off to squalid roadside zoos at around age 8--when they become too large and strong to handle. For chimpanzees, who can live into their 60s, this means a long life of misery.

BBDO Worldwide, the New York office's parent company, is the second largest global agency network. It has 287 offices in 79 countries and 15,000 employees. BBDO Worldwide joins many of the nation's top advertising agencies--including Young & Rubicam, Draftfcb, EuroRSCG, Arnold Worldwide, GlobalHue, and GSD&M Idea City--in its commitment to keep great apes out of all future ads.
 
For more information, please visit PETA.org.