Please contact AFLAC Incorporated (a supplemental medical insurance
company) and urge them to stop running TV commercials that represent
ducks in dangerous, unnatural, and degrading situations. Below is the
contact information, and below that is UPC's letter to the company.
Feel free to draw upon the information in the letter, but put it in
your own words. Thank you for contacting AFLAC!
Contact:
4 March 2002
Dear Mr. Amos:
On behalf of United Poultry Concerns, I am writing to express our
objection to your Grand Canyon and Natural History commercials and to
request that in future ads you do not place any more birds in
literally or implicitly harmful situations.
Having talked with your advertising manager Al Johnson who faxed me
the letter from the American Humane Association's communications
manager Karen Rosa, I still don't know whether the duck(s) in those
ads were physically harmed. But even if no ducks were harmed, the
Grand Canyon commercial implies that the duck fell from an enormous
height and landed hard. In the final shot it looks like the duck was
pushed off something about 6 feet high. (Pekin ducks don't fly or
jump from heights.)
We ask that you stop putting animal abuse images in people's minds.
As a former juvenile probation officer in Baltimore who is now the
head of an animal protection organization, I know that many children
and teenagers are influenced by programming that treats animals
derisively and/or places them in unnatural, potentially harmful
situations. We ask you not to cater any further to this mentality.
We object to your Natural History ad which shows a duck (alive or
simulated, but to the viewer, alive) hanging upside down in a bat
cave, as in a slaughterhouse.
We request that you find ways to sell your product without using live
animals and without implying that putting a live animal in a harmful
or degrading situation is funny. If you plan to keep the duck logo,
why not switch to a person in a costume? We simply ask that you do
not promote your product at the expense of those who are vulnerable
to human cruelty and abuse.
We would appreciate a response from you. Thank you for your
attention.
Sincerely,
Karen Davis, PhD
President