Detergent Brand Cleans Up Its Ad Policy: No More Captive Wild Animals

For Immediate Release:
February 28, 2023

Contact:
Robin Goist 202-483-7382

A box of dolphin-shaped vegan chocolates is on the way from PETA to locally based detergent company Earth Breeze, which pulled an ad featuring captive dolphins after PETA pointed out that it could be seen as an endorsement of cruel marine parks. The company also updated its ad policy to prohibit images of captive wildlife and the use of live animals, who typically face dismal living conditions and abusive training methods for ad production.

“Dolphins in marine parks are confined to cramped tanks with nothing to do but swim in endless circles and attack one another out of frustration,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “Earth Breeze was quick to agree that dolphins and other wild animals aren’t props, and PETA commends the company for washing exploited wildlife out of its ads.”

In the open ocean, dolphins live in large, complex social groups and swim up to 60 miles each day. In marine parks, they’re confined to barren tanks that, to them, are the equivalent of bathtubs and forced to perform meaningless tricks. In addition, PETA’s undercover investigations have documented that animals used for film, TV, and advertising are kept in deplorable conditions and abused in other ways. For example, a PETA video exposé uncovered that Budweiser severs the Clydesdales’ tailbones or painfully cuts off the blood supply to the tail with a tight band, eventually causing it to die and fall off—all so the horses will look a certain way when hitched to the beer wagon in Budweiser ads.

Earth Breeze, which uses no animal ingredients and never tests its products on animals, joins a growing list of companies—including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Johnson & Johnson, and Levi Strauss & Co.—that have banned captive wild animals from their ads following discussions with PETA.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment or abuse in any other way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.