Tell Liberty Mutual Insurance to Pull Their Emu Ads

The long necks and excellent periscopic vision of emus enable them to survey the land for miles in all directions at once. Emu parents incubate and raise their young together. They are very gentle birds.

Liberty Mutual Insurance has been running a series of commercials featuring an emu outfitted with sunglasses, wigs and other demeaning attire. The emu is shown in front of a store window sparring with his or her reflected image and in a car reacting to a loud bang. The emu is being made fun of, but there is nothing funny about this bird’s distress and defenselessness in the ads, which must surely involve violence to the emus, who would never voluntarily submit to the situations being portrayed.

In response to our protest, Liberty Mutual’s customer service said the emus in the ads are computer generated images (CGI); however, the company states elsewhere that:

“LiMu Emu is a mix of a real bird and CGI. Live emus were used during the initial shoot on set. The final images of the emu in the commercials are a blend of footage captured from the live emus and our digitally created emu.”

Most viewers do not know that the emus featured in the ads could be a mixture of digital and real. Regardless, the birds are being ridiculed. Knowing how badly birds and other animals are typically treated in media preparations behind the scenes, we have no confidence in Liberty Mutual’s behavior or rhetoric.

Emus belong to the oldest living family of birds on earth, including ostriches and other fleet-footed flightless fowl. They are gentle, friendly, desert-dwelling nomads with a strong family life in which both parents participate in nest-building and raising their young. Liberty Mutual has no business belittling and abusing them to sell car insurance.

• Tell Liberty Mutual Insurance to remove their offensive emu commercials and confine their advertising scenarios to human actors. Violating the dignity of birds and other animals to sell products and services is unacceptable. If you have insurance with Liberty Mutual, tell them you’re considering canceling or not renewing. If you don’t have insurance with the company, tell them you will never be their customer as long as they use animals in their commercials. Request a reply to your complaint.
  
  Contact:
  David H. Long, Chairman and CEO
  Liberty Mutual Insurance
  175 Berkeley Street
  Boston, Massachusetts 02116
  Phone: 617-357-9500
  
  Customer Service:
  ​Phone: 1-800-290-8206; 1-800-290-7933
  Tweet: @AskLiberty for customer service related concerns or inquiries.
  
  “CONTACT US” Via Liberty Mutual Insurance Website:
  https://www.libertymutualgroup.com/about-lm/corporate-information/contact-us