MiC’s K.I.S.S. Pick: PETA creates sleuth campaign

Once again, People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals has lived up to its reputation for concocting effective guerilla campaigns on a shoestring. This time out, they're placing looking-for-love ads in the personals column of a free website. Sample: 'Attractive, fun-loving brunette seeks long-term relationship' - with the brunette actually being a pit bull.
By Terry Poulton
December 8, 2006

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals reports that more than 200 men have already responded to the phony dating ads they recently placed on the Craig’s List free website – only to find out that, for example, the ‘brunette with a rocky past,’ who was kicked out of her home for being pregnant, is actually a pit bull named Misty.

The tender-hearted men who’ve been responding to the ads are from Boston, St. Louis, Minneapolis and New York, and all received an email directing them to a PETA-designed MySpace page featuring Misty. The email not only describes the pooch’s unhappy life, but exhorts visitors to become active in their own communities to fight cruelty to animals.

Simple? Yes. Free? Almost. Effective? Definitely, according to Norfolk, Virginia-based PETA director Daphna Nachminovitch, who says: ‘If one person opens his heart to animals in need, these ads will have been a success.’