Car insurer Bingle has hit back at a series of complaints about its new skydiving ‘Joni the chimp’ TV commercial, saying that rather than promoting animal cruelty, the TVC is actually helping to protect them.
The online car insurance enlisted the help of the aptly named creative agency, The Monkeys, to make the 30 second commercial and since its release last month the Advertising Standards Board has received nine complaints from viewers, some believing that the chimpanzee jumping out of the plane is real.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On9AHQY078A
But a space mission this is not, and ‘Joni’ is actually a computer-generated primate, put together by specialist digital agency The Mill based in New York.
Bingle brand manager Jasmine Hildebrand tells B&T: “Some of the comments we are receiving are things like ‘ how dare you treat a real chimp like that,’ and how disturbing it is to see a chimp being thrown from a plane.’
Hildebrand says that technology is now so advanced that studios and brands don’t even have to consider using real animals, which can only be good for the future.
She adds: “Before we developed this ad, we conducted research into the use of primates in ads, including inappropriate practices where primates have been used for the purposes of entertainment, which is why we turned to CGI as the most appropriate avenue.
“With CGI technology, you can make numbers on a computer look like a real animal in the end, and that’s a great thing for the industry and for our wildlife.
“This is the alternative and hopefully it will encourage more companies to do the same thing and stop the exploitation of wild animals.”
Unsurprisingly, the complaints have been dismissed by the Advertising Standards Board.
No word yet on how many complaints have been received for Bingle’s dancing crab. But then, who wants to cuddle a crustacean?
