CareerBuilders is planning on using Chimpanzees again! Sign the Petition

According to PETA, the job search website CareerBuilder.com is planning to continue their not-so-proud tradition of using real, live chimpanzees in their big-dollar Super Bowl commercials again in 2011. The whole chimpanzee thing is a longstanding part of CareerBuilder's advertising shtick; they've done several spots featuring chimps.

PETA, with an assist from actress Angelica Huston is calling on CareerBuilder's CEO, Matt Ferguson, to pull the ad (it's already been made) on principle. Ferguson, in a company-issued statement, says that everything on the set was on the up-and-up: "...we followed strict guidelines to ensure our chimpanzee stars were treated well and not harmed in any way."

The problem is, what happens on the set itself is usually the least of a chimp's worries. It's what happens before and after their acting "career" that's really damaging. First, most of the chimps used in advertising are pretty young animals; often, they're taken away from their mothers before they're emotionally ready to be away.
And, their "careers" in entertainment are usually pretty short. Chimpanzees are strong, and sometimes aggressive, animals. According to PETA, by the time a chimp gets to be about eight years old, they're usually unmanageable for commercial shoots. The problem is, chimpanzees are also pretty long-lived — they can live for 60 years in captivity. So what happens when they're too old to be docile enough for entertainment?

That's the really bad part. Usually, they end up in research facilities, or perhaps worse, unaccredited zoos and animal shows. Chimps, of course, are our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, so it's fair to ask whether you'd like to spend fifty years or so living in those conditions.

But the biggest problem with chimps in advertising is that most people just don't really know about the conditions they face. I suspect that Matt Ferguson, the CEO of CareerBuilder, is probably one of those people who don't know the details. There's no shame in that, as long as you do the right thing once you get educated.

By the way, among the people who do know the truth about chimps in advertising, you can count executives at ten of the nation's biggest ad agencies. They, along with a good number of smaller ad shops have signed on to PETA's pledge not to use live chimps in their work. You can also count the folks at Dodge, who earlier this year pulled a chimp ad, replacing it with a pretty clever alternate ending. PETA, for all the controversy they sometimes stir up, has done a remarkable job of plugging away and educating advertisers and ad agencies about the seedy side of animal advertising.

That's the good news. Once people find out about the hell that chimps go through when they're used for advertising, they wise up and change their ways. Here's hoping CareerBuilder does the same.

Ask CareerBuilder not to air the new ad, and to stop using chimpanzees in future advertising.

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