With New York Fashion Week starting this week, PETA has released a short video called “Runway Reversal,” which features animals modeling human skin and hair on the runway.
Created by the Beijing office of ad agency Ogilvy & Mather, the ad also features human skin and body parts on clothing racks, a skinned corpse, and naked people locked in cages. Then, the camera zooms in on a nude, trembling Chinese girl shivering in a cage.
PETA spokesperson Shakira Croce said that PETA’s main targets for the ad are young Chinese consumers.
“China [is] our number-one target for its lack of animal-protection penalties,” Croce told Mashable . “For obvious political reasons, protest is pointless in China, so … [we] created this slick short to provoke debate among young consumers without targeting a specific brand and drawing the ire of trade officials.”
Senior Vice President Dan Mathews said the organization has worked with Chinese media stars to wear anti-fur T-shirts, and has also worked with animal protection groups to raise awareness of animal rights. “That sort of thing has been fine,” Mathews said. “It’s about making a lifestyle choice. We’ve had to be very careful because of cultural sensitivities.”
PETA is known to use provocative ads to steer (get it? steer?) people away from buying fur and eating meat. Last Valentine’s Day, the organization released a video that, essentially, boiled down to “ vegans have better sex .” For Super Bowl XLV, there was the video of scantily clad women making out with and getting down with vegetables .
What do you think of PETA’s “Runway Reversal” ad?
