Morbidly skinning popular anthropomorphic characters, a series of ads from Miami Ad School shows iconic characters dead to raise awareness for the use of animal furs. Entitled 'Fur has no happy endings,' the ads attempt to destroy your childhood memories by showing gruesome images of your favorite characters.
Cartoon icons such as Winnie the Poo and Bugs Bunny are seen dead without fur on most of their bodies. The tortured characters are seen bleeding out on a stage in pain with their flesh exposed.
By showing anthropomorphic characters without fur, the ads effectively help the viewer empathize with skinned animals. Exploiting the connection that the audience already has with these icons allows the ads to make its point that skinning animals is wrong.
Why This Trend Is Growing
- Animal Rights Activism
- Marketing campaigns using popular icons to raise awareness of animal cruelty may be a new and effective technique for increasing support for animal rights organizations.
- Shocking/provocative Marketing
- Creating and publishing ads with shocking or provocative content that grab viewers' attention is a strategy that could potentially increase ad engagement and virality.
- Personal Connection Advertising
- By showing familiar characters in a new and disturbing context, viewers are forced to confront their connection to these characters as they have never before, making an impact on consumers and potentially increasing loyalty to a brand or message.
Industries Being Reshaped
- Fashion
- This type of campaign may disrupt the fashion industry by calling into question the use of animal furs in fashion and making it less appealing to clothes buyers.
- Advertising/marketing
- Marketing businesses and ad agencies have an opportunity to use advertising as a tool to amplify important issues and raise awareness, as Miami Ad School did with this campaign.
- Entertainment
- The entertainment industry may potentially be affected by provocative ads that challenge people's emotional connections to iconic characters, thus making certain franchises less appealing to consumers.
