Those chimps that represent every doofus you've worked with, they make you laugh every year when Careerbuilder.com runs the ad during the Super Bowl game.
Admit you. You are guilty of finding humor.
There are those who aren't so much as chuckling. Maybe it's because their collective heads are lodged firmly up their collective asses.
Chicago's own Lincoln Park Zoo wants Careerbuilder to pull those ads AT ONCE and NEVER RUN THEM AGAIN!!!
The head of the zoo's Fisher Center, home to many primates on display, is beyond upset when he sees the noble chimp used in such a fashion, as an object of ridicule.
In Dr. Steve Ross's mind, showing chimps in suits will make us less likely to want to preserve and protect the species. Using chimps in such a frivolous manner will only result in a further erosion of chimp populations. At least that's what he's gotten out of a study from Duke University that claimed use of chimps in commercials takes away our concern for the fate of chimps in the wild.
Dr. Brian Hare, who led the Duke study, is worried that all those Africans watching the Super Bowl will be led to believe that chimps are in high demand as advertising stars, and they'll all go out and try to capture every last wild chimp.
Those of us who live in the real world, well beyond the boundaries of the Ivory Tower, find that concept almost as funny as the commercials themselves. Desperately poor people in Africa, watching American television? Do they train chimps to pedal bicycles attached to generators to create the electricity to power the 52 in. plasma screen?
The two professors have cited statistics that show the ads are less effective than those that employ scantily clad female humans or cute little jingles, but Careerbuilder.com has found that the ads are highly effective at boosting business and creating brand awareness. They aren't about to drop an ad campaign that's working for them.
So that means the college profs have nothing left but the instillation of guilt, in the hope that the public will feel their outrage and turn on Careerbuilder.
That's not likely to work, either, but it's a whole lot easier to create a tempest in a teapot than to actually put together a public awareness campaign that rides on Careeerbuilder's coat tails. Less troublesome to call for a boycott than to teach the viewing public about the threats to chimp habitat and population, about the realities of wild animals that cannot be turned into household pets.
But then again, these are college professors we're talking about. They're not accustomed to doing the dirty work, like teaching. Isn't that what the T.A.s and instructors are for?
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