Hey, Shoppers: ‘Animals Are Not Products,’ Proclaims PETA Ad Blitz

Provocative Ads in High-End Shopping Centers Plead With Holiday Shoppers to See the Suffering Behind Every Leather Handbag, Shoe, and Accessory

For Immediate Release:
November 20, 2017

Contact:
Audrey Shircliff 202-483-7382

Watch out, Black Friday shoppers: Near luxury retailers like Prada, Hermès, and Louis Vuitton at Ala Moana Center in Honolulu and Tysons Corner Center in Tysons, Virginia, PETA has placed ads that show a crying eye peering out of a leather coin purse below a tag reading, “Animals Are Not Products.”

“Behind every crocodile-skin handbag or leather shoe is a sensitive animal who felt pain and fear and didn’t want to die,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA’s new ad campaign encourages shoppers to offer some comfort and joy to animals by choosing vegan options on Black Friday, during the rest of the holiday shopping season, and all year long.”

PETA’s exposés of the “luxury” leather industry revealed that reptiles’ necks are hacked open and metal rods are jammed through their spines while they’re fully conscious. A recent PETA exposé of the world’s largest leather processor showed workers branding calves on the face and electroshocking and beating cows and bulls. The group—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—has also exposed a thriving dog-leather industry in China, where workers club and peel the skin off more than 2 million dogs a year in order to make accessories that are intentionally mislabeled and exported around the world.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.