Ogilvy & Mather Bangkok and PETA have given shoppers a wake up call in a stunt called “Behind the Leather”. In the ad a pop-up store in a Bangkok shopping mall looks innocent enough displaying purses, shoes, jackets and accessories made of animal skin, but on closer inspection the products are gruesome.
The ad isn’t for the faint-hearted, but it gets the point across:
The ad ends with a message: “For the exotic skins industry, cruelty is a daily business.”
According to the PETA Asia website: “Every year in the exotic-skins industry, millions of snakes, lizards, crocodiles, and other animals are grotesquely abused and cruelly killed. Thailand is notorious for its crocodile, ostrich, and stingray farms, where animals are bred commercially.
“Every bag, shoe, or jacket that is made from exotic skins and sold in a trendy boutique comes with a high price—a price that’s paid by animals who are ripped from their jungle homes or farmed in barren tanks and then beaten to death, shot, or even skinned alive.
“At least 440,000 pythons are caught in the jungles of Southeast Asia, where some are hung, decapitated, and then skinned. Some have their jaws forced open, a hose inserted into their body cavity, and then are pumped full of water so that their skin becomes easier to remove. The skin is then ripped from the animal’s body, sometimes while they’re still alive.”
This isn’t the first time PETA has used shock tactics to drive its point home. Last year it’s “Here’s The Rest Of Your Wool Coat” campaign showed Aussie musician Jona Weinhofen holding a bloody sheep and the campaign “Fur Is Dead” showed women being attacked and skinned for their ‘coats. Heaps of famous women including Pamela Anderson, Isabelle Cornish and Marisa Miller have posed naked for the animal rights group.
