Lamar Advertising to Face Heat From PETA for Rejecting Lifesaving Ads

For Immediate Release:
May 19, 2021

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

“As police departments, retail centers, humane societies, and child advocacy groups across the country desperately try to remind people that hot cars are death traps for animals and children, why does Lamar refuse to help spread the word with PETA’s ‘Too Hot for Spot and Tot’ billboard and other lifesaving messages?” That’s the question a PETA representative will ask Lamar Advertising executives at the company’s virtual annual meeting tomorrow—and the rep will also point out that since PETA spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertising every year, running the group’s ads would financially benefit Lamar and its shareholders.

PETA bought stock in Lamar last year in response to the company’s apparent new policy—enacted after years of running PETA ads—to refuse to run all PETA ads, even ones that could save dogs’ and children’s lives.

“As temperatures rise, countless dogs and kids are at risk of enduring agonizing deaths in hot cars,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “The clock is ticking on Lamar to reverse its petty anti-PETA policy and agree to run our crucial ads again before it’s too late.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—notes that on a mild 78-degree day, the temperature inside a parked car can climb to a deadly 100 degrees in minutes, even if the vehicle is in the shade with the windows slightly open. Last summer, at least 25 dogs and cats and 19 children died from heat-related causes, and those are just the cases that were reported—most aren’t. The group relies on ads to remind people of this and many other animal issues, including spaying and neutering and anti-chaining.

PETA opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.