Okay... I'll admit... I haven't seen the Verizon ad with the ferret. I don't know if it is good or bad, shows ferrets in a good light, or in a bad light. But this issue got me thinking about how advertising in general affects us all. Maybe not all the time with every product, but it does affect us all. Let's look at what Disney has done for animals in the last few decades... they taught us that lemmings commit suicide by throwing themselves off cliffs to keep their own numbers down. I still recall how many times I repeated that fact to my friends when I was a child. Now, thankfully, I know better. They showed us that Dalmatians were the dogs of choice with the outcome of 101 Dalmatians and all the subsequent merchandise. And shelters filled with Dalmatians after each of their movies and promotions was long forgotten. Take any animal spotlighted in a movie and the result is always the same... Remember Beethoven? It was the same with St. Bernard's. But advertisers know that they can push not only good feelings on people with animals, but they can do the same in reverse, making people afraid of the water, like the movie Jaws did decades ago. How many of us are still afraid to go into the water at a beach? The fear of sharks created by one movie alone resulted in an all out war on sharks - any kind of shark - and hundreds of thousands died because of created fear and hysteria. Again, now I know differently and am more informed. Advertisers are quite aware of the power they hold when they put an ad on TV that depicts a product either in a good light (their product), or in a bad light (the competitor's product). But aside from all that, it is not always the product that is remembered but what is in the commercial itself. Try to think of 10 commercials you like right now and ask yourself what you remember most about them. Is it the actual product or do you recall something else in the commercial? Most people recall something in the commercial. Because my career is related to advertising, I tend to remember the product as well. But I am not in the majority. I also scrutinize commercials as to what they are saying and what they are selling. I also rate commercials into success or failure categories. One of my most hated commercials is for a well known national brand of coffee. The commercial opens with a couple getting a puppy from the pet store window and taking it home. Each subsequent scene shows the couple forgiving the puppy for massive damage to the house it has created. Each time the couple just laughs and shrugs it off. The last scene is the puppy standing amongst strewn coffee grinds with the last shot of the couple returning the puppy to the pet shop window. For those of you who may have seen the new version of the ad, the end shot of the couple returning the dog has been cut. What the ad blatantly told the viewer was that the animal was an object. When things didn't work out, they simply returned it. What the advertisers intended was something else. They wanted to show that nothing in their home was more valuable than their precious coffee. But did the viewer get the message? Regardless of the *intent* of the advertiser, it is clear that the edited version came after numerous complaints of the original ending. And rightly so. Advertisers have a responsibility to be respectful to issues that surround us daily. Sure, comedians use anything as material. That is different. It has long been known that television has had a strong affect on how we live, how we think, what we eat and our social obligations. Ads depicting ferrets as willing to attack someone when provoked or *teased* may have been intended as humor, but the viewing audience is not always on the same wavelength. But just to turn this argument around for a moment... let's say the ad actually does some good, as in, it weeds out those people who were thinking of getting a ferret as a pet, but were not really ready for the commitment. Perhaps the ad helped a few ferrets from not being adopted into a bad home. In much the same way that Disney hurt Dalmatians, let's think of how Verizon may have helped a few ferrets too and turned away people that were not really serious about having one. It may be an odd way to think of it but I think most of us know that not everyone is capable of living with a ferret. Shelters on this list know all too well how many ferrets are turned in simply because the owner was ignorant to the special needs of ferrets and impulse bought on their cuteness. Perhaps, in some small way, Verizon's ad actually did some good. As with everything, there are many ways to look at a situation. We owe it to ourselves to try to look at as many possibilities as we can to truly understand a situation. Regardless of intent, we must focus on what advertisers are really saying. And without our input, they won't know the difference. Just some thoughts... betty and her blur o'fur for the love of ferrets [Posted in FML issue 3880]