Style Over Substance: On the Inefficacy of Modern Public Service Announcements
PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, claims to “[work] through public education, investigative news gathering and reporting, research, animal rescue, legislation, special events, celebrity involvement, and protest campaigns” in order to combat “speciesism,” “an oppressive belief system in which those with power draw boundaries to justify using or excluding their fellow beings who are less powerful.” PETA is undoubtedly the world’s largest, most well-known animal rights organization. Whether it be because you support their mission or use the organization as a punchline in a joke, you’ve definitely used the acronym PETA before.
While PETA’s mission statement is, at its very core, a wonderful start to achieving animal rights for those “in laboratories, in the food industry, in the clothing trade, and in the entertainment business,” the validity of their claims dwindles when their public outreach strategies backfire. Public influence is critical for advocacy organizations. It is one of the primary tools deployed in spreading awareness and gaining support for local, national, and global issues alike. However, when public outreach is perceived as immature or nonsensical, it may push a target audience further away from a campaign’s ultimate goal.
Virtual Protests
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, Nintendo released the video game Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The franchise, nearly 20 years old at the point of New Horizons’ release, was a massive hit and simulated a perfect island escape for those stuck indoors at the time. However, it did not stand the test of time with PETA, which found a problem within the game only a few months after its release: Blathers’ museum.
Blathers, an owl passionate about collecting, runs the museum that you inevitably open on your Animal Crossing island. He requests that you bring him any fish, insects, or fossils that you find throughout the island so he can display them. This digital menagerie, an innocent challenge to most players, was not something that PETA was interested in completing or endorsing. In May 2020, the organization began virtual protests in retaliation to Blathers and his museum. They held signs reading “EMPTY THE TANKS” and “FISH BELONG IN THE OCEAN” in front of the museum entrance. While the sentiment of protesting against captive aquatic animals might be honorable if it were an in-person event, it appeared to many as tone deaf and childish, neglecting the real animals being slaughtered while they held pixelated signs in front of a fictional owl’s fictional museum. Though virtual protests were an understandable alternative because of the ongoing pandemic, this attack on an innocuous video game was just one of many things that PETA has done to worsen their public image. Along with the considerable amount of backlash in response to their various tweets about Animal Crossing, many of the PETA Twitter account replies are simply GIFs – usually to insinuate that the responder does not care about the original tweet or to imply heavy sarcasm.
One of the biggest issues regarding this type of activism is its curious approach to such a polarizing topic. All over the world, and in America especially, the range of diehard vegans and fierce animal hunters is extremely vast. PETA’s decision to flippantly retort criticism on social media with a wide range of television show GIFs—as opposed to providing any substantive information—dilutes the animal rights debate, crowding out constructive dialogue and, consequently, pushing dissenting sides further apart.
Though PETA is often deemed the perfect example of laughable activism, they are not alone in their unfavorable reputation regarding their choice of advertisement. Many media-consuming people can describe a public service announcement that scared them straight or even traumatized them, usually to keep them away from things like tobacco or other harmful drugs. However, a teenager’s “biggest” enemy in the 21st century—vaping nicotine—has its own catalog of pathetic advertisements that do not deter today’s teens from hitting a vape.
Style Over Substance
The anti-tobacco campaign, the Truth Initiative, is similarly popular for all of the wrong reasons. Their advertisements, described as “outdated,” “awkward,” and “cringeworthy,” are met with significant backlash on social media. A reposted video of Truth’s 2015 commercial campaign “LEFT SWIPE DAT,” depicting users of the dating app Tinder “swiping left” (i.e. rejecting) on potential suitors smoking cigarettes in their profile photos, has a comment section filled with many unhappy viewers who make it clear that Truth’s methods against Big Tobacco are not working. “Smoking rate increases by 100%,” one commenter says. “I feel like anti-smoking commercials are funded by big tobacco to try to make nonsmokers seem cringy and actually increase smoking rates,” says another. One commenter even says that watching the video “makes [them] want to restart smoking cigarettes.” Despite hundreds of similar comments, Truth continues its work to connect with a younger generation that is more “hip and modern,” serving in its ad campaigns memes that are six months too late in relevance and making references that their target audience doesn’t understand.
In Closing
These forms of public outreach are not working. With the overwhelming amount of negative reactions to PETA’s Animal Crossing campaign, on top of those who feel the urge to take a smoke break following a Truth commercial, the outcomes of silly, juvenile advertisements are not those that advocacy groups hoped for. Both PETA and Truth’s approach to advertising their mission statements is absurd, with many believing that the people in charge of public campaigns actually intend for viewers to disagree with their message entirely. These unserious means of raising awareness about important issues alienate supporters of these causes, cheapen discourse, and promote secondhand embarrassment—not meaningful change. It is time for advocates to reconsider the utility and efficacy of targeted public service announcements. Ultimately, the goal of PSAs should be to improve the public’s well-being, not to entertain and draw (negative) attention to a specific campaign. PSAs can be both informative and entertaining. Yet, the latter should never come at the expense of the former.