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Ad Council pledges not to use great apes in ads

After learning from PETA how chimpanzees and orangutans who are used in advertising endure abuse as part of their behind-the-scenes training, Peggy Conlon, president and CEO of the New York-based Ad Council, has signed PETA’s “Great Ape Humane Pledge,” committing that the council will never use great apes in its ads. Because many of the CEOs of top U.S. ad agencies sit on the Ad Council’s board, PETA will request that they follow the Ad Council’s progressive lead and sign the pledge. The council--which created the category of public service advertising in 1942--has never used great apes in ads.

“Chimpanzees and orangutans belong with their families, not on ad sets where they are forced to perform under cruel and frightening conditions,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “No commercial product is worth tearing babies from their mothers and beating them into becoming ‘actors.’”