is you learn so much

animal blogger Lindsay B shared an office with me when we were on the 5th floor, and now that we are on the 3rd floor newsroom i have learned tons about animal rights groups, the strict rules of veganism, and what animal activists love and hate.

one thing i learned was animal groups hate it when animals appear in commercials. their argument is that in order to train animals to do the tricks that ad companies want, the creatures are typically ripped from their mothers at early ages and often abused into learning the commands and tricks.

so a few weeks ago when i saw the ad above for the Dodge Tent Event that ended in a little chimp dressed up like Evel Knievel i chuckled and thought “omg i have to ask Lindsay what the activists will think of this.”

the next day i showed her the ad and asked her to write to her contact at PETA for a quote. she got the quote, and a few days later she got a second email saying that PETA was happy to report that Dodge was going to alter the ad.

coincidence?

then recently we saw the new spot and i thought to myself – did Lindsay and I really influence a car manufacturer to do something? Dodge says that it got two emails, one from PETA and one from a chimpanzee rights group, but something tells me that part of the email may have said that the Times noticed the ad and is curious whats going on over there.

im ok believing it was a coincidence. and im totally ok with the altered ad, which can be seen here. our original post is here.