Skip to main contentAnimal-rights activists thought last month's Diabetes Expo 2003 was a perfect opportunity to highlight the link between obesity, diabetes and the consumption of meat. But Portland's billboard companies wouldn't bite.
Both Meadow Outdoor Advertising and ClearChannel Communications--the only "outdoor advertising" landlords in the Portland area--refused to carry a depiction of a pudgy child poised to devour a hamburger and the message, "Feeding kids meat is child abuse."
"As a company, we didn't think it was appropriate," says Meadow's John Zukin. Frank Podany, in charge of ClearChannel's outdoor advertising in the Northwest, says the ads, created by People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals, were too "inflammatory to [the meat] industry."
PETA smells a link between ClearChannel's refusal carry the billboards and the five local radio stations the company owns. Dana Peterson, spokeswoman for the Oregon Beef Council, says radio advertising makes up the bulk of her group's annual $100,000 advertising budget, and at least one ClearChannel station, KRVO 105.9 FM, has carried the council's ads.
Podany insists ClearChannel isn't playing favorites. He says the company--which owns roughly 1,400 billboards in the Portland-Vancouver area--routinely rejects ads with negative statements from all kinds of advertisers. "We don't single out PETA," Podany says, noting that ClearChannel has put up PETA billboards in the past.
Podany says he suspects the group wasn't serious about its proposal and sought to get its message across for free by manipulating media coverage. "It's
a great strategy," Podany says, "and it's working right now as we speak on the phone."
PETA's Bruce Friedrich says his group made a legitimate request; Portland was to be the first in a
10-city, $25,000 billboard campaign timed to
coincide with diabetes events. He points out that PETA has already paid for an identical billboard that will go up in Salt Lake City later this month. The same design was approved for New York City's buses, though the bus-advertising program has since been discontinued, Friedrich says.
While Portlanders won't see the meat-is-child-abuse campaign, they will hear from PETA's arch-rivals. The Oregon Beef Association will launch another round of radio ads in May--or, as the Oregon Beef Council's Peterson put it, "in time for grilling season."
WWeek 2015