The company I decided to write about is PETA. PETA is a company that advocates for animal rights, including testing or treatment. They have had many moments in their upbringing where people have not agreed with what they actually stand for, behind the scenes. Not to mention, they have a very bad way of marketing themselves, especially since many people know them for the terrible things they actually post and say. This week they are in the news because they were denied the opportunity to show their ad during the very popular Superbowl. Many companies work and fight to get their commercials to appear during the Superbowl because it is one of the most-watched things in the US. The ad that didn't make it into the Superbowl was later posted by PETA and captioned as seen below:
The reason I chose this company is that I always hear about them in the news and I care about animals' rights too. The companies value proposition is as stated: “dedicated to establishing and protecting the rights of all animals... operates under the simple principle that animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on or use for entertainment.” This is what I stand for as well but I do not make it my mission, unlike them to make people feel bad about their dietary choices since it does not affect me in any way.
As I mentioned above, they have been receiving backlash for the video they posted. The video is meant to show that all lives matter, but due to political correctness, this is a very bad concept for a video. One of the main takeaways that people got from the video is the kneeling all the animals and insects do since this was a very powerful moment with Colin Kaepernick and the Black Lives Matter movement. Although some people didn't think it was a big deal since the main point was that species lives matter so people shouldn't be mad since they shouldn't eat animals, yet they do. When looking at both sides I find it very ignorant that they took such an important moment in a very powerful movement and made about something other than human rights. I will always agree that animals need to be cared for and not used for a lot of things humans tend to use them for but why take that power away from the people. I remember how iconic the kneeling was that it not only affected the African-American culture but others as well. People have always made jokes about it and this only helps them lessen the seriousness, due to the ignorant moves PETA made.
This ad tries to promote veganism, it is trying to get people to understand that animals matter too, even if it was in a really poor way. The way they are marketing is by telling people that animals are just like humans and should be treated the same way. The way they try to market is by using something relatable or important to the culture, something trendy, but it doesn't get very well executed. Some aspects that relate to marketing is the way they post things to make sure people understand them. They pull a purple cow but it is in a very bad way since they do get noticed, it is just for the wrong reasons. Marketing is full of different things, and we learned a lot about that in our books but this takes all of that and kind of makes it a joke. When marketing something you want there to be support behind it but if all PETA is facing is backlash, there really isn't improvement to their movement. The marketing challenge the company is facing is finding a good middle ground for all the ads or other things they do. They always tend to make a small joke or be very insensitive to things around them so learning to be more respectful and understanding about what people actually want to see might help their movement more. There have been many instances where they have been really insensitive and people don't support people who don't have better values and ethics, like those of PETA. Here are some examples as to the insensitive marketing PETA has done:
PETA has a way of always getting away with some awful and insensitive things they post. They almost never answer the consumers and move on like nothing happened, and they did nothing wrong. As to this current issue they haven't really answered any of the consumers who have bad things to say about it, they just reply with a simple tweet which is a link that talks about how to end speciesism. Although I would have preferred for them to respond with a more serious response, the response is more efficient since they just give a simple one where they can read some “facts”. This is good and bad for the company, its good in the way that they don't actually have to fight many battles. Bad because no one is going to support someone as ignorant as PETA if they don't address the wrong they have made. If I was the brand manager I would have responded with an apology, this being because I want people to help me advocate animal rights. I would take to twitter, after taking down the advertisement, and show that I genuinely want to give an apology. I would then ask if there were any ways that I could show this similar message but more appropriately, even if I didn't take anyone's suggestions. At times being heard is better than being ignored, and I understand that.
What I learned from this assignment was that many brands have different ways to advertise their movements, and even when some seem wrong they might be the most effective. This company I chose says and does some terrible things but this only pushes loyal supporters to help them even more. I learned that marketing is important and there are many ways to do, even more than what we have learned.
