A ‘Chicken Wars’ Twist: Birds Bite Back in Edgy New Super Bowl Ad
PETA Launches ‘Fight the Bite’ Nationwide Ad Campaign Aimed at Big Game Viewers
For Immediate Release:
February 8, 2022
Contact:
Robin Goist 202-483-7382
What if chickens were to enter the “Chicken Wars”? Well, that’s just what they do in PETA’s new Super Bowl ad, slated to run nationally on ESPN, ESPN Deportes, NFL Network in Cincinnati and Los Angeles, and other networks in the run-up to the big game. The ad uses “security cam” footage to show what happens to diners when chicken dinners suddenly squawk back into living, breathing birds with a bone to pick about being fried for food. It’s part of PETA’s national “Fight the Bite” campaign aimed at slashing the estimated 1 billion chickens’ wings consumed on game-day last year.
As part of the campaign, PETA’s chicken mascots will be flocking to Shaquille O’Neal‘s Big Chicken restaurants, handing out vegan chicken to people outside. The restaurant, whose, no doubt unintentionally ironic, slogan is “Eat Life to the Fullest” offers no vegan items, even though Shaq is a Beyond Meat investor and is reportedly working on adding veggie wings to the offerings. So, PETA is hoping its giveaways will help these items fly onto the menu quickly. Similar giveaways are planned at KFC locations across the country, celebrating the recent launch of the company’s vegan nuggets, and PETA will also be setting up shop outside Buffalo Wild Wings and Wingstop locations to encourage the chains to follow suit.
“Once football fans think about the living, breathing birds who need those wings more than they do and discover how tasty the vegan versions are, we’re betting that many of them will cheer for the chickens,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA’s new ‘Fight the Bite’ Super Bowl ad aims to get everyone in the ‘Chicken Wars’ on the birds’ side and to let them keep their wings.”
Birds killed for their flesh are bred to grow such unnaturally large upper bodies that their legs often become crippled under the weight, and the sheds in which they’re confined are so filthy that the red watery goo in packages of chicken is referred to as “fecal soup.” At slaughterhouses, the birds’ throats are cut, often while they’re still conscious, and many are scalded to death in defeathering tanks.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—offers free vegan starter kits, a list of ready-to-heat plant-based wings available at grocery stores, and easy vegan game-day recipes.
For more information, please visit PETA’s website or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
