Tag: stupid PR

PETA become PETDA

Ahh, PETA, you’ve outdone yourselves.

PETA continue to get great media coverage for being the dumbest group of activists around. It’s like they sat in a strategy meetings and decided that the only way to get people to take them seriously was to act like idiots.

Pike Place Fish at the Seattle Fish Markets is famous for flying fish – there’s a customer service training course that has become a global phenomenon because one day some of the workers there decided to improve life working with stinky fish by flinging them around.

According to PETA this is a no-no. Throwing dead fish around is undignified. Especially at a conference for vets (which raised the PETA hackles on the issue).

“Killing animals so you can toss their bodies around for amusement is just twisted,” said Ashley Byrne, senior campaigner for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in Washington, D.C.

“And it particularly sends a terrible message to the public when vets call it fun to toss around the corpses of animals. If anyone should be promoting compassion and not callousness toward animals, it should be vets.”

Update: Sorry, I should have pointed out that PETA is objecting to having “sea kittens” (their attempted rebranding of aquatic life) tossed around.

June 16, 2009

Missed by a whisker

Everyone loves cats. Except for people who hate them, like me. There’s a whole website predicated on the idea that cats are irresistibly cute. Like the one this picture comes from – one of the internet’s most popular websites. I work with a lot of cat people. I’ll never understand them. I think I’m normal – and I think there are a lot of people out there who share my feline sentiments. Unfortunately not the marketing and branding boffins at PETA. They also think we all like cats. It seems they are capable of promotional activities not involving naked celebrities (there’s a word pairing that will boost hits to this blog), or vacuous blonds staging really smart protests about chicken cruelty at a business whose core business practice involves the killing of chickens.

PETA in its infinite wisdom has decided people are much less likely to eat fish if they’re rebranded – the entire species – as “Sea Kittens”. I am not making this up. This doesn’t hurt those of us who tuck into a big juicy steak with a clean conscience. No, this hurts those soft vegetarians who aren’t prepared to take a hard line vegan stance. Those who are still prepared to dehumanise – or dekittenise fish. Here’s a quote from the statement… it’s too good to edit.

“Of course, if you look at it another way, what all this really means is that fish need to fire their PR guy—stat. Whoever was in charge of creating a positive image for fish needs to go right back to working on the Britney Spears account and leave our scaly little friends alone. You’ve done enough damage, buddy. We’ve got it from here. And we’re going to start by retiring the old name for good. When your name can also be used as a verb that means driving a hook through your head, it’s time for a serious image makeover. And who could possibly want to put a hook through a sea kitten?”

And in a PR coup for the books – here’s your chance to make your own sea kitten to take home…

Create Your Own Sea Kitten at peta.org!

January 17, 2009

Turkey dies slow death in front of cameras

And birds prepared for Thanksgiving at the same time.

My favourite parts:
“Certainly, I’ll probably invite criticism for doing this too. But at least this was fun.”
“I’ll be in charge of the turkey… I’m always in charge of the turkeys.”
Yes, the turkeys in the background are getting it in the neck, literally, as she speaks.  It certainly did invite criticism – the interview was conducted after the Governor pardoned a turkey ahead of the Thanksgiving cull. The criticism largely came from the left – who it has to be said are the least likely Palin constituency. But still a PR lesson can be learned here – if you want a positive story for doing something nice to animals don’t do the doorstop interview in front of a slaughterhouse. Your message will be lost in the ensuing controversy.       

November 22, 2008