Final Project Assignment - Research Paper Example

They do their best to try to educate people to see what they say are excessive incidents of animal cruelty by big companies, farms, and individuals. They promote vegetarianism and do a lot of advertising using celebrities and attention-getting themes in order to try to get their message across. They were founded in 1980 in Norfolk, Virginia and have now grown to be a large organization with chapters around the world and hundreds of employees.          PETA is best known for their advertising campaigns which often feature prominent celebrities such as Pamela Anderson, David Cross, and a great many supermodels.

One of their biggest campaigns features these celebrities naked—with their private parts hidden, of course—under the slogan, “I’d rather go naked than wear fur.” Fur and companies that make or promote fur products have long been a major target for PETA. Other targets include the fast food industries and many of the travelling circuses that they say mistreat circus animals. These campaigns, which are often very flashy and attention getting, draw a lot of media notice and are displayed prominently.

One of the more recent campaigns suggested that people should start calling fish “sea kittens” in an effort to change the way sea animals are thought of and to try and make them appear more cute. The line used in this ad said, “When your name can also be used as a verb that means driving a hook through your head, its time for a serious image makeover. And who could possibly want to put a hook through a sea kitten?” Some of these campaigns are funny and interesting, but others have drawn a huge amount of controversy.

In 2005, PETA launched a campaign suggesting farm animals are the same as slaves. They showed pictures of cows chained up and then pictures of black people chained up. After complaints, they removed the ads. It appears that PETA is