I used to work in a job that did marketing promotions online for various media companies. Usually these were pretty benign campaigns, but from time to time the secondary sponsor would push my sense of ethics a bit. There wasn’t anything too bad (amazingly I avoided the dairy boards and big fast food during my 5 year tour of duty,) but once or twice I’d have to do something I wasn’t terribly comfortable with.
Anyway, I’m out now, and if I ever get another job I’ll be looking for something that’s safe from that kind of thing – I just didn’t like the conflict between my desire to do a good job and my desire to completely destroy what the “payer of the bills” stands for.
Still, there are times, often daily, where I see something and can’t figure out if it’s sheer marketing blunder or if there’s another vegan out there who chose route B.
Your case in point for the start of this long weekend: last month we talked a bit about a McDonald’s campaign involving super heroes. One group’s approach was to complain that the action figures were violent. Another group, apparently, either infiltrated the company or implanted subliminal messages to make Happy Meal toys like this one:
(and yes, I know Batman isn’t a Marvel hero. It’s probably another campaign. I can choose to watch what McDonald’s does every second of the day or what Batman does. Batman usually doesn’t make me throw up. OK, maybe a little.)
There are backstories to things like this that almost make me want to get a job in marketing again and deal with all the ethical crap, just so I can hear the tales. Someone had to have known what this would look like. Was it a dare? Did nobody want to speak up? Or was this actually on purpose?
None of this matters, really – McDonald’s is going to keep doing what it does, and people are going to keep eating there. A wanking Batman just doesn’t have the power to massively change consumer behaviour. It’s just funny, and if you can’t laugh at stuff once in a while, animal activism can get pretty depressing.
Greetings people of internet! I’m digging my way out of some project-related holes (not VP related, but once they’re done I look forward to working on some exciting new stuff,) but deputy pornographers Brook and Colleen have come up with some links and whatnot to fill the gap.
First, in response to the increasingly popular manliest salad ever video, Brook found the film that it’s from. Like all great mysteries of life, this trailer asks more questions than it answers:
And in response to the State Fair and deep frying post, I did some research by going to our local exhibition, where the lineup for deep fried butter was long and I didn’t care because hello, butter, but Colleen found a fried product I might actually have a use for. OK, probably not, but it’d likely get better the more you eat. Ladies and gentlemen, behold the majesty of deep fried beer.
That’s all for right now, but as a quick not-so-subtle hint: if you see something that might be pornable, send it in so I can look at it without reading a whole lot of internet – time’s a little tight this week for research mode!
geek posted something a while back about some UK chocolate bars switching to a non-vegetarian recipe with Mars’ proposed inclusion of rennet in their bars. In what some would call a positive move, Ange notes that the Mars folks have changed their mind and will be keeping the bars vegetarian friendly, after recieving something like 6000 comments in a week’s time.
Of course, the chocolate bars will continue to be non-vegan, and in all likelihood, the net animal loss will remain about the same – rennet is extracted from calves’ stomachs, and these are the same calves who aren’t growing up to produce milk for the chocolate, what with being born male and all. The only real difference is at the consumption level, which would lead to a purely health-oriented argument about diet, which seems mildly silly when discussing chocolate bars.
Now, the reason the company made the change of heart in the first place has a lot to do with the fact that there are 3 million vegetarians in the UK (I don’t have a source for that, but that’s what the managing director of Mars UK believes), which can actually be measured into a meaningful percentage of a customer base, as opposed to vegans, who represent a fringe group at best in most major markets. Maybe it’s time to focus on redefining vegetarianism?
Erik Marcus sent in an update on the “is it still bestiality if the animal is dead?” case we reported on a while back. If you recall, Bryan James Hathaway was arrested for having sex with a dead deer on the side of the road, but his lawyer argued that because the deer was dead, it wasn’t a crime. The judge has denied the motion for dismissal, stating that Wisconsin’s laws deal more with sexual morality rather than animal protection, so the status of the deer was irrelevant. Depending on how that decision went down, it could have led to some interesting discussions about what exactly is appropriate when dealing with dead animal flesh (people do a lot of twisted stuff with animals for pleasure, although generally it happens at the dinner table). As it is, this doesn’t even change things when it comes to general morality, just the sexual kind, and it certainly doesn’t do anything good for animal protection. Link.
5 years ago, we wrote about a new housing development that was built next to a slaughterhouse. As Steve_L reports, the place was gutted in a 5 alarm fire this week, and believe it or not, I’m disappointed. I’m disappointed on two counts here – first of all, I get the feeling that over the past residents learned more about political lobbying than they did about the possibility of going vegan when confronted with the realities of meat production, and second, I’m annoyed that there’s no mention of the fate of any animals that may have been inside, pre-slaughter, when the fire began. The article said that no one was injured, but animals never make it into that calculation. Link.
Just yesterday I asked Ange what’s been going on with the Fast Food Nation movie, because I thought it was supposed to be out in September, and she keeps closer track of the outside world than I do. She didn’t know, but someone must have overheard our conversation (I knew the kitchen was bugged!), because I just got word that the release date is now November 17th. Anyone want to plan some VP meetups around the event? If you want to be the coordinator for your city, claim your glory in the comments below. Link.
We first wrote about China’s penis restaurant back in February, but as graham notes, it’s back in the news again, so I figured hey, what better way to start off a Monday morning? No matter what else may come of this article, if you packed leftovers for lunch, they’re going to look 100 times more appetizing after you follow the link. The article reads like a cross between a bad horror movie and a World of Warcraft quest. I’m not trying to knock traditions that have lasted thousands of years, but frankly, a lot of the dishes served are there for people to impress their dates with. Western medicine used to believe in bleeding people until they felt better or died trying. If China’s trying to be more like the Western world, dropping tiger wang from the menu might be a good place to start. Link.
Matthew from Enviroblog sent in some followup to the Ronald McHummer story: in response to criticism over the addition of toy Hummers to McDonald’s Happy Meals, a VP commented on the controversy over on their corporate social responsibility blog. In short, the VP feels that toy hummers are simply toys and not vehicle recommendations or consumer messages, just like Happy Meals are just meals and not training programs for a lifetime of misguided food choices. As Matthew notes, even though their blog is called “Open for Discussion” and the entry closes with “Thanks for your comments. We welcome the dialogue,” the entry has zero comments, and not from a lack of submissions. Link to Enviroblog entry, Link to McDonald’s entry.
Back in June we ran a story about a woman who beat a dog breeder over the head with a dead puppy. That link has expired, so I can’t be sure, but I’m sincerely hoping that this is a follow-up to that post, because how many dead-puppies-as-weapons incidents can happen during one presidential term? (What, I needed a timeframe is all. I’m not blaming Dubya for this, not really.) Magic Stones reports that Lisa Hopfer has been found guilty of assault and trespassing, but because she basically hit the guy with meat, there’s nothing on her record about her attitudes towards animals, at least nothing that could stop her from buying another chihuaha, which she seems to have done. Link.
Porphyry sent in a follow up to our earlier post about the World Hunting Association, which plans to air televised hunting events in which the deer are brought down by tranquilizer darts and arrows. It seems that, like hunting over the internet, we’ve found another issue where pro-animal groups and hunters have some common ground in their opposition. Of course, the reasons differ widely (animal groups are concerned for the animals, hunters think it’s not real hunting without the kill), but whenever you can get bipartisan rejection of an idea, it’s probably going to trump any focus group you can come up with. Regardless of the feedback, the WHA is still planning its first tournament this October, assuming they get around the legal challenges that are mounting. Link.
