Westminster Dog Show = KKK
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Dear Jonathan,
Thank you for your letter to PETA. We hope that you’ll allow us to explain the thoughts behind some of our tactics.
PETA’s purpose is to stop animal suffering (ORLY? check this out then http://www.petakillsanimals.com/), and we use all available opportunities to reach millions of people with powerful messages. We have found that people do pay more attention to our more provocative actions, and we consider the public’s attention to be extremely important. Sometimes this requires tactics—like naked marches and colorful ad campaigns—that some people find outrageous or even “rude,” but part of our job is to grab people’s attention and even shock them in order to initiate discussion, debate, questioning of the status quo, and, of course, action. The current situation is critical for billions of animals, and our goal is to make the public think about the issues.
Unfortunately, getting the animal rights message to the public is not always easy and straightforward. Unlike our opposition, which is mostly composed of wealthy industries and corporations, PETA must rely on getting free “advertising” through media coverage. We often do outrageous things to get the word out about animal abuse, because sadly, the media usually do not consider the facts alone “interesting” enough to cover. Colorful and controversial gimmicks, on the other hand—like activists’ stripping to “bare skin rather than wear skin,” jumping on stage at a fashion show to protest a model’s shameless promotion of fur, etc.—consistently grab headlines, thereby bringing the animal rights message to audiences around the country and, often, the world.
Although PETA has been a leader in creating “buzz” to support our cause, we aren’t alone in recognizing its value. According to Brett Gosper, former CEO of Euro RSCG Wnek Gosper, an advertising firm which created a controversial anti-racism campaign, “If your communication is selling a cause, then shock tactics may not just be an option, they may be essential. Budgets on cause-related work are so low that it is imperative for the media to relay your communication and multiply its visibility. Media won’t do this out of the goodness of their hearts. The more controversial the advertising, the more space it will get.”
We wish that that weren’t the case. We would much prefer to do things without the gimmicks—if only it worked. We’d like nothing better than to be able to show the media videos of factory farms, fur farms, and animals in laboratories and have them find it newsworthy enough to cover. But they don’t. However, when we attach a gimmick, that very same animal abuse ends up in newspapers and on televisions nationwide. After PETA publicized our provocative “State of the Union Undress,” for example, we were rated the number one “mover” on Yahoo’s search engine, meaning that PETA received the greatest percentage increase of terms searched that day. Experience has taught us that controversial, attention-grabbing campaigns make the difference between keeping important yet depressing subjects invisible and having them widely seen. The alternative is to be ignored in the torrent of tabloid-style stories that dominate the popular press.
However, PETA does make a point of having something for all tastes, from the most conservative to the most radical and from the most tasteless to the most refined, and this approach has proved amazingly successful—in the quarter-century since PETA was first founded, it has grown into the largest animal rights group in the world, with more than 2 million members and supporters worldwide.
To learn more about some of the many lifesaving victories we have won for animals, please visit Some of these feats were accomplished by months of undercover investigation, careful documentation, and a tireless pursuit of justice through the courts, and others by colorful demonstrations, stunts, and campaigns that drew international media coverage.
Thank you again for giving us the chance to explain the thoughts behind our tactics. We hope that even though we may not always agree on all points, we can still work together on those ones that we do agree on.
Sincerely,
The PETA Staff
Thank you for your letter to PETA. We hope that you’ll allow us to explain the thoughts behind some of our tactics.
PETA’s purpose is to stop animal suffering (ORLY? check this out then http://www.petakillsanimals.com/), and we use all available opportunities to reach millions of people with powerful messages. We have found that people do pay more attention to our more provocative actions, and we consider the public’s attention to be extremely important. Sometimes this requires tactics—like naked marches and colorful ad campaigns—that some people find outrageous or even “rude,” but part of our job is to grab people’s attention and even shock them in order to initiate discussion, debate, questioning of the status quo, and, of course, action. The current situation is critical for billions of animals, and our goal is to make the public think about the issues.
Unfortunately, getting the animal rights message to the public is not always easy and straightforward. Unlike our opposition, which is mostly composed of wealthy industries and corporations, PETA must rely on getting free “advertising” through media coverage. We often do outrageous things to get the word out about animal abuse, because sadly, the media usually do not consider the facts alone “interesting” enough to cover. Colorful and controversial gimmicks, on the other hand—like activists’ stripping to “bare skin rather than wear skin,” jumping on stage at a fashion show to protest a model’s shameless promotion of fur, etc.—consistently grab headlines, thereby bringing the animal rights message to audiences around the country and, often, the world.
Although PETA has been a leader in creating “buzz” to support our cause, we aren’t alone in recognizing its value. According to Brett Gosper, former CEO of Euro RSCG Wnek Gosper, an advertising firm which created a controversial anti-racism campaign, “If your communication is selling a cause, then shock tactics may not just be an option, they may be essential. Budgets on cause-related work are so low that it is imperative for the media to relay your communication and multiply its visibility. Media won’t do this out of the goodness of their hearts. The more controversial the advertising, the more space it will get.”
We wish that that weren’t the case. We would much prefer to do things without the gimmicks—if only it worked. We’d like nothing better than to be able to show the media videos of factory farms, fur farms, and animals in laboratories and have them find it newsworthy enough to cover. But they don’t. However, when we attach a gimmick, that very same animal abuse ends up in newspapers and on televisions nationwide. After PETA publicized our provocative “State of the Union Undress,” for example, we were rated the number one “mover” on Yahoo’s search engine, meaning that PETA received the greatest percentage increase of terms searched that day. Experience has taught us that controversial, attention-grabbing campaigns make the difference between keeping important yet depressing subjects invisible and having them widely seen. The alternative is to be ignored in the torrent of tabloid-style stories that dominate the popular press.
However, PETA does make a point of having something for all tastes, from the most conservative to the most radical and from the most tasteless to the most refined, and this approach has proved amazingly successful—in the quarter-century since PETA was first founded, it has grown into the largest animal rights group in the world, with more than 2 million members and supporters worldwide.
To learn more about some of the many lifesaving victories we have won for animals, please visit Some of these feats were accomplished by months of undercover investigation, careful documentation, and a tireless pursuit of justice through the courts, and others by colorful demonstrations, stunts, and campaigns that drew international media coverage.
Thank you again for giving us the chance to explain the thoughts behind our tactics. We hope that even though we may not always agree on all points, we can still work together on those ones that we do agree on.
Sincerely,
The PETA Staff
looks like somewhat of a template... i was hoping for an angry outburst of accusations and such. oh well.
they arent getting their message out by doing these stunts...
they are getting the media's attention on the "provocative actions," not the actual message they are trying to send by acting out in such ways....
seems to me, anyway..
they are getting the media's attention on the "provocative actions," not the actual message they are trying to send by acting out in such ways....
seems to me, anyway..
I think they're trying to use these types of risky ads (sex, contraversy, etc etc etc) to attract the younger audience and suck them into believing that PETA is cool and trendy.
I think it's working. Look at all the free publicity PETA's superbowl ad recieve, that didn't show on ABC !!! If you readup on blog sites, (digg, reddit) many of these younger bloggers think what they did was "cool" .....
ugh . .
I would seriously ask some well-worded questions after every paragraph if I were you, to see if you can actually get a human response.
Yeah it gets attention, and causes negative feelings, not good ones...
