Super

According to the mission statement on the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) website,

PETA works through public education, cruelty investigations, research, animal rescue, legislation, special events, celebrity involvement, and protest campaigns.

What this means is that they produce materials and campaigns that get people, companies and organizations to take note, talk and write about what they are doing.

A recent example is the ‘banned’ Super Bowl commercial, (video above). I don’t think they meant or wanted to have that aired during the Super Bowl. If it did happen, it would have cost PeTA $3 million; or roughly 10% of their operating budget. Not the best use of money as the viewers are likely not their target audience. However, by getting the spot banned, it caused countless news organizations, bloggers and other media types to write about it as well as creating a general hubbub around the spot.

PETA is one of the world’s best marketing organizations and knew exactly what it was doing when they submitted the spot to NBC. They’ve done this before and none of spots have been aired. However, because of the interest, they’ve been viewed millions of times – far more effective than spending $3 million.

The target audience of PETA is actually quite small because when people realize the connection between the treatment of animals and their dinner plate; many cannot deal with that and become quite defensive or are in denial about their food choices. Many never get beyond this point.

Regardless, the PETA campaigns are meant to shock – so they are quite effective. They are probably more effective than mainstream advertising because the effects of their campaigns last in the (emotional) minds of people for years. PETA does piss a lot of people off, including vegetarians, but I don’t know of any vegetarian that would start treating animals poorly or revert to eating animals again because of it. PETA takes the bad with the good.

The good is that they have made someone notice – that’s their first goal. Their second goal is to get people beyond that point. Most will never get beyond the campaign; however, a small percentage will and read further. The third goal is to get people to provide support (money) to carry out their campaigns.

Mainstream marketers can only wish they could have this kind of impact.