Sprint Nextel Corp. said Thursday it will no longer use great apes in its advertisements after animal rights activists complained about an ad by the wireless provider that features a chimpanzee.
The Overland Park, Kan.-based company said the ad will stop running in movie theaters on July 3, when it already was scheduled to end. It also said it will not use great apes in future ads.
“Sprint and its advertising agency, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, take all necessary precautions to ensure any animals appearing in Sprint advertising are taken care of and are treated well,” the company said in a brief statement posted on its Web site.
A Sprint spokesman declined further comment.
The ad, meant to encourage theatergoers to turn off their cell phones before the movie, features a chimp movie star and his agent negotiating over the phone with producers for a part in a film.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals asked Sprint to pull the ads last month, saying animal trainers are known to abuse the animals they work with. The organization said it didn’t have evidence the chimpanzee used in Sprint’s ad had been abused.
At one point, PETA awarded Sprint a “Baddy,” which the organization assigns to companies with problematic advertising.
PETA upped the ante earlier this month when actress Anjelica Huston wrote about the poor treatment of some animal performers in Hollywood in a letter to Sprint CEO Dan Hesse.
Kristie Phelps, assistant director for PETA’s Animals in Entertainment campaign, welcomed Sprint’s decision. The wireless provider joins a number of U.S. companies, including Johnson & Johnson, Gap Inc. and Levi Strauss & Co., that have agreed to not use great apes in advertising.
“We’re very pleased they’ve reached this compassionate decision,” Phelps said. “Every leading zoologist has come out against the use of great apes in entertainment because … you must use dominance and fear to get chimpanzees to perform.”
Ron Cicero and Bo Clancey Launch Production House 34North
Executive producers Ron Cicero and Bo Clancey have teamed to launch 34North. The shop opens with a roster which includes accomplished directors Jan Wentz, Ben Nakamura Whitehouse and Mario Feil, as well as such up-and-coming filmmakers as Glenn Stewart and Chris Fowles.
Nakamura Whitehouse, Feil and Fowles come over from CoMPANY Films, the production company for which Cicero served as an EP for the past nearly five years.
Director Wentz had most recently been with production house Skunk while Stewart now gains his first U.S. representation.
EP Clancey was freelance producing prior to the formation of 34North. He and Cicero have known each other for some 25 years, recently reconnecting on a job directed by Fowles. Cicero said that he and Clancey “want to keep a highly focused roster where talent management can be one on one--where we all share in the directors’ success together.”
Clancey also brings an agency pedigree to the new venture. “I started at Campbell Ewald in accounts, no less,” said Clancey. “I saw firsthand how much work agencies put in before we even see a script. You have to respect that investment. These agency experiences really shaped my approach to production--it’s about empathy, listening between the lines, and ultimately making the process seamless.”
34North represents a meeting point--both literally and creatively. Named after the latitude of Malibu, Calif., where the idea for the company was born, it also embraces the power of storytelling. “34North118West was the first GPS-enabled narrative,” Cicero explained. “That blend of art and technology, to captivate an audience, mirrors what we do here--create compelling work, with talented people, harnessing state-of-the-art... Read More