Today, we’re asking for your help. We’ve reached out to the Suburban Auto Group multiple times over the years about their “Trunk Monkey” ads using chimpanzees who were abused during their years in entertainment.
Instead of listening to our concerns, retiring the old and tired campaign, and coming up with more creative advertising, the car dealership outside of Portland, Oregon keeps bringing the Trunk Monkey ads back.
Please help us in continuing to reach out to them today by learning more and sending a polite email to Erinn Sowle, Suburban Auto Group’s general manager, via this page.
Thank you for speaking out and sharing the action alert with your contacts. Your voice makes a difference!
Please stop promoting animal abuse. Animals are not ours to use and abuse. I will be sure people know that your dealerships supports animal abuse. There are many other dealerships which do not support this type of behavior.
Done! And since I am in advertising industry, I have taken The Great Ape Pledge. Over the years, the advertising industry has produced hundreds of commercials featuring real great apes. Advertisers were unaware of the terrible ordeal the animals endured in order to end up in front of the camera. If you are in the business, please take the pledge and commit to never use real great apes because there is no excuse to use a great ape for a cheap laugh : http://www.greatapepledge.org/great-ape-pledge/
I’ve often wondered about this, Kathleen. Do you think it’s that they really didn’t know what we put them through during these ad campaign shoots, or that they just didn’t care? It’s been my experience that even after learning of the mental and physical torture an animal endures during the testing process for products we use in our households, that people, for the most part, *still* don’t care. They still find ways to distance themselves from the result of their direct suffering. I argued with my own parents for years over their allegiance to Proctor & Gamble products–what used to be the biggest propagator of animal testing on the planet. Thank God that company has changed their policies so that the animal testing has dropped drastically, but I used to lead boycotts against Walmart–the biggest P&G distributor in America.
As a former television actor, I used to do commercials, of course, and so I know how big that cog is–how convoluted just one decision is and how many people are directly involved, so making change isn’t easy, nor is it quick, and it involves a lot of people, all of whom are cow-towing to their boss–the business that hired them to do the campaign. We call them the “Producer”. 🙂
Anyway, I’ve just often wondered about that.
I’d also like to see stores finally quit carrying monkeys and apes used as models for birthday cards. The more we buy those, the more the industry thinks we approve and hires more models to pose for the ad campaigns.
I use a very small, independent pharmacy that has free delivery since I have no car (I’m a ‘po university student!), and it bothers me that each time I go in there, there’s a display of birthday cards with chimps and orangutans on them. Since the pharmacist and I are on good terms, I never know how to broach the subject with him, although he’s the lead pharmacist but not the store owner or manager. Maybe a nicely-worded letter directly to him will preserve my relationship with the pharmacist (I showed him my painting of Burrito last week and told them about the sanctuary and now they are fans, but I got the distinct feeling that, based on their reactions, they just weren’t aware that Chimps were in such dire need that they needed to be sent to sanctuaries, although as a pharmacist, I know “Z” has certainly been made aware of their use in biomedical research).
Now that Obama has given the rest in research labs their endangered species status, that’s a huge step forward, but these lingering campaigns still speaks to how far we need to go. It bothers me so much that the general public are very slow to connect the dots; that their actions result in direct harm to these guys.
Anyway, keep on them. If there were just some way you could convince them that these campaigns are not producing revenue, THAT will be the thing that will turn them, since these businesses make decisions based only on their wallets. It’s how we vote and make every decision we face each day.
Keep us updated on how it’s going, and I’ll do what I can! *One of y’all whisper a “Have a good day, buddy from Carla in Nashville* in the Burrito-man’s ear for me, will ya? 😉
Good day to each of you! <3