|
Daimler Chrysler
Advertising Company Backs IFAW
Berlin, Germany, 13 June 2003: Fresh from withdrawing its offensive TV commercials
in America for Jeep products, DaimlerChrysler’s German advertising agency
has produced a free advertisement for the International Fund for Animal
Welfare (IFAW).
Springer and Jacoby’s emotive TV
commercial runs during the annual meeting of the International Whaling
Commission-IWC (Berlin, 16 to 19 June 2003) and suggests that whales will
become extinct because of hunting by Japan and Norway. In fact, minke
whales are abundant and the takes by Japan and Norway are so low that they
have no impact on long-term population sizes.
Moreover, far from starting to whale
"again" as the advert misleadingly proclaims, Japan and Norway
have been hunting whales in a sustainable manner for years.
Mercedes-Benz, part of DaimlerChrysler,
confirmed to eNews that Springer and Jacoby still works for it and made no
comment on the IFAW advertisement. Mercedes-Benz is cited in IFAW’s
publicity release as the product Springer and Jacoby is "best
known" for promoting.
DaimlerChrysler has recently infuriated
millions of hunters, trappers and fishers with two Jeep advertisements.
Most recently a Jeep Liberty advertisement was withdrawn after a
letter-writing campaign complained about its stereotypical portrayal of
sealers. An earlier Jeep Cherokee advert slurred deer hunters and was also
withdrawn.
IFAW has a history of trying to mislead
the public. In 1999, the British Advertising Standards Authority, a
government watchdog agency, banned one of its advertisements because the
information it contained lacked credibility and was out of date. Later the
same year, a Canadian judge criticized an IFAW video on seal hunting and
described their cameraman as a "sophisticated con man". Now IFAW
is up to its old tricks again.
Two years later a flawed IFAW opinion poll
in the USA claimed that nearly five times as many Americans supported trade
sanctions against Japan because of its whaling program than actually knew
that Japan was a whaling nation. IFAW’s poll of one thousand registered
U.S. voters found only eight individuals who specifically opposed
scientific whaling, the focus of the group’s campaign against Japan. Only
fifteen per cent of respondents were actually aware that Japan was engaged
in whaling.
The invalidity of the poll was further
confirmed by a related "finding" that more than a quarter of
Americans opposed whaling because they believe it is wrong to kill animals.
Ninety-five per cent of Americans eat animals.
In November 2001, Ruxton newspapers
published an expose into the campaign by IFAW and the Natural Resources
Defense Council (NRDC) to prevent the construction of a salt evaporator
plant at Laguna San Ignacio (see Sustainable eNews January 2002). This
industrial development would have provided around 250 permanent jobs in an
area of Mexico that was economically depressed without having any
discernible impact on the environment. After a yearlong investigation, the
newspaper group "found no scientific basis to suggest the salt plant
proposed at Laguna San Ignacio represented even a mild threat to the baby
grays or the adult whales." The campaigners had claimed it would
decimate the gray whale population.
According to the journalists, NRDC
received $20 million from the public between 1996 and 2001 as a result of
this campaign, which also helped to increase its membership from 175,000
members to 500,000. IFAW and NRDC together spent $15.5 million on the
Laguna protest, much of which was channeled into more fundraising.
While Daimler Chrysler has not endorsed
the IFAW advertisement, it is the largest client of Springer and Jacoby.
Anyone wishing to protest Daimler Chrysler’s continued use of Springer
and Jacoby should write to:
- Mr. Bob Renaud, DaimlerChrysler
Headquarters, Windsor, Ont. Canada (rar17@daimlerchrysler.com)
For more information and interviews, contact Eugene
Lapointe
Email: iwmc@iwmc.org
|
