Ogilvy Bejing’s fur hurts campaign alerts people to the brutal realities of fur in fashion

To raise awareness in China about unethical fur farming practices, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Asia and Ogilvy & Mather Beijing have launched an integrated campaign, “Fur Hurts,” with a provocative art installation and corresponding public relations and social media crusade.

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“Fur coats and trims on jackets, shoes, and other accessories may look fashionable, but they’re the result of terrible pain,” said Hailey Chang, Chinese Campaign Coordinator, PETA Asia. “This is especially true in China, where fur sales have increased to over 22 percent last year and are expected to reach RMB 16.4 billion (USD 2.6 billion) over the next two years. So this is a big business and even bigger challenge to overcome.”

Ogilvy & Mather Beijing brought the idea to life by engaging with the local art community, led

by acclaimed Chinese artist Xie Yong, Professor of the Shenyang University Art Department, and his students, to create a series of nine unique, life-like sculptures that portray the animals most threatened by China’s fur trade, such as rabbits, minks and foxes. Instead of wearing their own highly prized fur, these animals are covered in coats of needles to signify the intense pain they feel at the hands of fur traders. Exhibited at the Zhuozhan Shopping Center in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, one of the chilly northeast Chinese provinces where demand for fur is highest, the sculptures are accompanied by a documentary showing grisly scenes of animals being inhumanely kept and killed as well as a call to action for viewers to pledge against fur.

Ogilvy Public Relations Beijing also pitched in through media outreach and Chinese celebrity endorsements to further the campaign and the cause. To maximize the installation’s exposure, O&M Beijing took the campaign online by creating a campaign mini-site where the animals have been recreated virtually alongside an online petition. Each pledge collected promises a needle’s removal from the online sculpture that is then replaced with a strand of fur to symbolize the real animals’ being saved from harm. Participants are encouraged to share their pledges through social media such as Sina Weibo.

Juggi Ramakrishnan, Executive Creative Director, O&M Beijing, said, “Because it can

be quite challenging to ask people to watch real videos of animals suffering at the hands of humans, we took an artistic approach to represent the wretched pain and terrible price that millions of animals pay each year to meet the high demands for fashion. We hope this will prompt the public to stop purchasing and wearing clothing made from animal skin and fur.”

Credits –  Chief Creative Officer: Graham Fink. Executive Creative Directors: Juggi Ramakrishnan, Kweichee Lam, Wilson Chow. Creative Director: Xingsheng Qi. Associate Creative Directors: Awing Chen, Ming Law, Paul Bo. Director: Morris Ku. Art Directors: Peggy Wang, Ashley Chin. Artists: Xie Yong and students of Shenyang University Art Department

Agency Producer: Tony Liang. Production Houses: BestChange (for web production), Ant-X Production Co. (for video production).