Pink And Ricky Gervais Awarded Golden Addy For PETA Us Spot

For Immediate Release:
10 June 2011

Contact:
Sandra Smiley +44 (0)207 357 9229, ext 229; [email protected]

London – It’s not every day that a skinless alligator with the voice of an award-winning pop star wins a prestigious advertising award, but that’s precisely what PETA’s American affiliate, PETA US, is celebrating. The animal rights group has netted an Addy Award – the gold medal in the Public Service, Television category – for its “Stolen for Fashion” public service announcement (PSA), which features the voice talents of Pink and comedian Ricky Gervais. With more than 40,000 entries, the Addy Awards are the world’s largest advertising competition.

“Visual messages about animal protection – especially when they combine star power and provocative images – have a unique and lasting effect on viewers”, says PETA US President Ingrid E Newkirk. “We’re delighted to receive an Addy Award in recognition of our work, and we’re grateful to Pink and Ricky Gervais for giving much needed attention to rabbits and alligators who are killed for their skin.”

In the 30-second TV spot, Pink and Gervais provide the voices for a computer-generated alligator and rabbit who demand their skins back from a couple retrieving an alligator skin bag and a rabbit fur coat from a coat check. As the alligator says, no matter what someone pays for clothing and accessories made from animals’ skins, the animals have “paid a lot more!”

Alligators and other exotic animals who are killed for their skins are commonly beaten to death with hammers and axes, and it can take up to two agonising hours for them to die after being skinned. Rabbits, foxes, minks and other animals on fur farms spend their entire lives in cages before meeting violent ends such as being electrocuted or having their necks broken or their skulls smashed, and many animals are even skinned alive.