In a recent conference call with investors, KFC outlined strategies for improving flagging U.S. sales, including projecting a "younger image." Since we're going to be matching these guys stride for stride until they agree to make some major changes in the way they treat chickens, that means we need to be hitting the same markets with our message that KFC tortures animals. The latest salvo in this operation is our series of edgy horror-movie-style anti-KFC spots, which will be debuting in Boston this week for the BU, Tufts, and Harvard audiences as a counter to the college-targeted advertising that KFC's been running.

This one's my favorite from the series. If you haven't seen it yet, you should check out the whole site. It's kind of awesome.

Those wily British counterparts of mine just won’t stop pushing the envelope. I wrote last week with some pride about how their “Feeding Kids Meat Is Child Abuse” ad made the BBC’s top 10 most controversial ads list—well, according to The Guardian, they’re at it again! Apparently there have been complaints about the anti-KFC ad pictured below. Some nannies are worried (not kidding) that it “breaches the advertising code's stipulations on responsible advertising, decency and causing fear and distress.” A couple of points here: 1) I’ll admit that the prospect of KFC slicing up defenseless animals is both frightening and distressing, but surely that’s KFC’s fault, no? 2) As PETA President Ingrid Newkirk told the journalist who wrote the Guardian piece about this ad: "The cartoon image of Colonel Sanders killing a chicken on our leaflet is obviously a caricature - a comic. We cannot imagine that our leaflet would provoke fear in anyone unless the reader was a chicken." ‘Nuff said.

I wanted to do a joke here about the fact that “gosling” means baby goose, but it’s not coming, so I’ll just play this one straight: Ryan Gosling, the Oscar-nominated star of Lars and the Real Girl, Murder by Numbers, and Half Nelson, has just fired off a letter on behalf of PETA to John Bitove (who runs the show over at KFC Canada in Ryan’s home country) urging him to stop KFC suppliers' worst abuses of chickens, who are killed when they’re still just babies. "The time is ripe to do the right thing," he writes. "By adopting the basic recommendations made by PETA and scientific experts (including raising birds in a more natural manner and employing less cruel slaughter methods), you could dramatically improve the lives and deaths of chickens raised and killed for KFC Canada."

Ryan Gosling	Goslings

Image credits: DeadlineHollywoodDaily, BBC / CC

You can read Ryan’s letter here. And if you haven’t seen Lars and the Real Girl yet, you should rent it. Definitely one of my favorite movies this year.

Yup, our pal Ron Jeremy has signed on to PETA’s KFC boycott, because he’s a firm believer in, um, doing chicks right. Before I get too carried away with the sexual innuendo here, let’s take a long, hard look at what Mr. Jeremy had to say about KFC. Good stuff, and thanks, Ron, for coming through.

This was a big one. The photos were taken after the peta2 Take Action Conference in Toronto last week. More on that on peta2’s blog (fair warning: my peta2 colleagues tend to use a lot of hip, slangy, young-people lingo, so try not to let it get you down), and there are plenty more pics on this Flickr photostream. Anyway, what I’m trying to say here is that’s a lot of people protesting that one little Toronto KFC. I bet they were pretty surprised. Nice work, peta2. You guys are, like, totally rad.

We’re debuting our very first branded food product today, and, being PETA, we figured we’d do something that would make a bit of a splash. We’re launching Newkirk Nuggets™ (patent pending), a cutting edge (and surprisingly delicious) animal-meat alternative created by cloning cells from an upper arm biopsy of PETA President Ingrid Newkirk who is “100% free range, grain fed, white meat.” It’ll be a little while before these bad boys appear in grocery stores, but we’re planning to generate some buzz about the new product by handing out free samples outside KFC restaurants here in Virginia, in the hopes that fast-food lovers with a taste for flesh will choose our “100 Percent Human(e) Alternative” instead of chowing down on the tortured remains of chickens inside a KFC. As Ingrid says, “They say everything tastes like chicken, and now so do I.”

The breakthrough has been in the making for 11 years in laboratories spread across three countries, working to grow animal tissue with the taste, texture and, most difficult of all, the “skin depth” or muscle mass of fish and chicken. According to the experts: “The tissue was taken from Ingrid’s upper arm and cultured in a “nutrient soup” of mushrooms, human collagen and soy broth to form myoblasts. The myoblasts reproduce rapidly to form ¾-inch-thick sheets of what PETA calls “100 per cent victimless meat.”

I know, it sounds a wee bit gross at first, but I suspect that anyone who really knows how meat is processed will welcome this safe, humane, and tasty alternative. Check it out:

The guys who run ICanHasCheezburger.com gave one of the most inspired and hilarious talks at South by Southwest this year, and, when they gave away burgers to everyone in the crowd at the end of the discussion, they made a point of providing lots of veggie burgers, which I thought was very decent of them. I know I'm not the only person in the office who's a devotee of the site, because a ton of people have been sending me this little gem, which they posted yesterday.

see more crazy cat pics

I’ve written about these Colonel Sanders effigy-burnings before, but this video really shows just how striking these demonstrations can be. This one’s from a protest in Pittsburgh earlier this month.

If you want to organize your own demonstration against KFC, (no need to get quite so fancy as this—a few friends and some simple signs is all it takes), we can walk you through the process.

If you were following the Super Bowl ads closely this year, you would have noticed an advocacy ad for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, which depicted a drug dealer lamenting his recent lack of customers, because “kids are just getting high out of their medicine cabinets nowadays.” Which, well, no problem with that specifically—it’s a perfectly sound message reminding parents to be careful about their prescription drugs. Some big question marks do arise, however, when you consider the email that PETA received from FOX Television last month when we submitted our own series of ads to run during the Super Bowl:

“Time will not be sold on FBC network facilities for viewpoint or issue advocacy, and advertisers may not use their commercial time for addressing viewpoints or issues.”

So what’s going on here? Was FOX outright lying to us to get us off their case, or is there something I’m missing here? To make FOX’s double standard even more obvious, one of the three ads that we submitted (the series was designed to raise awareness about KFC’s cruel treatment of chickens) specifically addressed the issue of drug abuse. I’ve posted that ad below.

Here’s the letter we sent to FOX Broadcasting Company's VP of Advertising Sales today, asking him, essentially, WTF?, and you can watch the entire series of ads that were banned from Super Bowl consideration here.

In 2005, PETA released footage from an undercover investigation into a slaughterhouse run by KFC Supplier Tyson Foods, which showed live chickens’ heads being ripped off, among other acts of unbelievable cruelty. Two new PETA investigations of the company, which have just been released today, reveal that Tyson has done nothing to prevent the torture it inflicts on these animals—and provide gruesome examples of what KFC’s continued refusal to do anything about the cruelty that is endemic to its suppliers means for the animals used by the company. Please click here to write to KFC and Tyson Foods and demand that they follow through with PETA's recommendations to stop this hideous abuse.

File this one under “hilarious.”

PETA Asia-Pacific had planned to take the dolls on a tour of red-light districts, including Pat Pong in Bangkok, Kings Cross in Sydney, Kabukicho in Japan, and the Philippines' Angeles City. The dolls were confiscated by customs officials when they arrived in the Philippines via U.S.-based package carrier UPS en route to PETA Asia-Pacific's office in Makati.

"The blow-up dolls were a trouble-free prop because KFC also treats chickens like inanimate objects," says PETA Asia-Pacific Director Jason Baker. "KFC profits from using crude killing methods—the company has an international obligation to stop torturing the birds who end up dead in its buckets. We're calling on people worldwide to boycott KFC until the company implements minimal animal welfare standards."

Next maybe PETA Asia-Pacific will challenge KFC’s executives to Beirut to decide the fate of the 850 million chickens raised and killed for KFC.

Canadian Rocker Bryan Adams, who is a vegan and friend of PETA who has donated his talent as a photographer to help us create our ads, took it upon himself this week to let John Bitove, the CEO of KFC Canada, know exactly what he thinks about KFC’s treatment of chickens. You can read Bryan’s full letter here. Thanks Bryan, for, um, Everything You Do (I’m going to be singing that song all week now).

And if you’d like to write to KFC’s execs yourself, you can find their contact information here.

Earlier this year, we took our KFC Campaign up a notch by sending our fearless Kentucky Fried Cruelty campaigner, Lindsay Rajt, deep into the heart of darkness—Louisville, Kentucky, itself—to help make sure that employees at KFC’s headquarters had a constant, chilling reminder of the fact that we are not going to go away until they stop the worst abuses of the hundreds of millions of animals they kill every year for their restaurants.

(A couple of things I should note about that previous paragraph before I go on: 1) Lindsay has informed me that despite having one or two irredeemably evil residents, Louisville is in fact a very cool, vibrant, and progressive town. Not a heart of darkness. And 2) Lindsay has also registered an objection to being described as “chilling.” She is in fact a very lovely person in her free time, and only fills people’s hearts with fear in a strictly professional sense.)

Anyway, the point is that this weekend marked the grand opening of our “Kentucky Fried Cruelty” Campaign Headquarters directly across the street from a Louisville KFC. Here are some pictures:

I can’t think why, but apparently, the good folks at New Hampshire Community Technical College-Manchester have grown unhappy with their institution’s name. I guess it’s possible that they thought it was a bit on the boring side. Or perhaps just a teensy bit unwieldy?

Either way, as of last week, their long wait for an exciting new moniker is over, since the kindhearted souls in PETA’s Vegan Campaigns Department had a little brainstorming session and decided to offer them this striking suggestion:

It has a real ring to it, doesn’t it? Something about the alliteration, maybe. If they like our idea, not only will NHCTC students be able to hold their heads high with the knowledge that their school finally has a genuinely interesting name, but they’ll be sending a strong message that their progressive institution opposes cruelty to animals in all its forms. Plus, in case they need an incentive beyond the good they’ll be doing for the chickens abused for KFC’s restaurants, I can assure them that name changes like that tend to get a whole lot of publicity …

You can read our letter to the school here. We haven’t heard back from them yet for some reason, but I’ll let you know when we do.

Since the Halloween season is upon us and all that, I wanted to share this bit of Halloween trivia with you. Zombies hate KFC. Seriously, they hate it. In fact, they hate it so much that they held a protest at a KFC in Moscow, ID, with signs reading “I’d Rather Be Dead Than Eat at KFC”. Unfortunately for this group of zombies, their photographer only got shots of their signs reading “Aurgh Graun Uargh”. But you get the idea. If you’d like to do your own zombie-themed KFC demo, click here.

And since you asked . . . No, I am not dressing up for Halloween. In fact, I’d rather go naked than dress up for Halloween.

Lindsay and Nicole, a couple of die-hard anti-KFC campaigners, completed the Louisville Half-Marathon in KFC’s hometown yesterday. So what, you ask? Well, they did the whole thing with “Boycott KFC” and the like written on their bodies, and the pair reported that they got tons of support from the crowd and even talked to several Yum (KFC’s parent company) employees along the way, including one particularly chatty woman who wanted to debate around mile six. Of course, she couldn’t defend KFC, since you can’t really defend a company that refuses to take even the smallest steps towards improving the miserable lives and deaths of the animals killed for its products, despite the fact that its own animal welfare advisory board recommends the changes, and other industry giants like McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy’s, and scores of others, have already taken similar action.

Congrats Lindsay and Nicole!

And on a totally unrelated note, Wu Tang Clan member RZA walked away with the crown in the Hip Hop Chess Federation’s first annual Chess Kings Invitational. Lucky for RZA that I didn’t know about it in time to enter!

Saturday night, PETA campaigner Matt Rice was in Louisville, KY, with a giant crippled chicken to protest at a Yum Brands (the parent company of KFC) fundraiser at CEO David Novak’s house. The shindig was supposedly to fight global hunger, which is totally laughable. Global hunger isn’t laughable of course, but KFC pretending to give a hoot about it is. Let’s be real here: since it takes several pounds of wholesome grain to produce a single pound of unhealthy chicken meat, KFC does more to contribute to global hunger than it does to stop it. KFC holding a fundraiser to fight global hunger is like Marlboro holding a fundraiser to fight lung cancer. The WorldWatch Institute puts it like this, “[M]eat consumption is an inefficient use of grain—the grain is used more efficiently when consumed directly by humans. Continued growth in meat output is dependent on feeding grain to animals, creating competition for grain between affluent meat-eaters and the world’s poor.”

Oh yeah, we were also there to remind consumers to boycott KFC until it takes the advice of its own animal welfare panel to end the worst abuses of chickens by its suppliers.

Here are a couple of photos from the evening.

BabyGirlCigars/Creative Commons

For those of you who haven't heard yet, I'm a new dad! And I've been giving out these cigars all over the office for the past few of days to celebrate. Granted, I'm celebrating the birth of an amazing new internet marketing campaign, not a baby, but hey, my work is all I’ve got . . . so just humor me, OK?

You see, I've been working on this Super Chick Sisters game (for those that haven't been a teenager at any point in the last 23 years or so, it is a parody of, like, probably the most popular video game in human history, Super Mario Brothers) for what seems like the better part of my adult life. And to be honest, the process has been a lot like what I imagine having a baby must be like, minus the super fun part at the beginning and the gross part at the end though. But now that all the work is done and the game is out there, I gotta say, I'm a damn proud Papa.

Don't get me wrong, there are a ton of people to thank for this little bundle of joy, not the least of which is Karen, who spent God only knows how many hours making changes based on my latest whims. And dear dear Paula, who bless her sweet little lawyerly heart, actually thought that a koopa was a contagious disease when the game's concept was first thrown her way.

My excitement comes not just for finishing the game—but because it's already been extremely successful! It's gotten great pick up on super popular blogs and gaming sites. All in all over 100,000 folks have been to KentuckyFriedCruelty.com in the past couple days to play the game (and learn about how chickens killed for KFC are crueltly treated)! Best of all it's received over 1k diggs on digg.com, driving massive traffic to the game. So play the game, and if you enjoy it give it a digg yourself, or at least tell everyone you know to go play it.

And one more thing. I'm not giving up the cheat codes, no way.

In addition to being an icon of the adult film world Jenna Jameson is also an entrepreneur, a model, and oh yeah, she also happens to be a good friend to PETA. Jenna first got involved in animal rights after watching Earthlings a year or so ago, and we could't be happier to have her on our side in our KFC campaign. She also happens to date the Huntington Beach Bad Boy himself, my favorite UFC fighter, Tito Ortiz, but that's another story for another day.

Anyway, during a recent photo shoot, Jenna made some time to say a few words about KFC. She really is beautiful, inside and out.

Have you heard of Jason “Gummi Bear” Davis? Don’t worry if you haven’t, he’s just another in the long line of disposable tabloid fodder LA rich kids. Usually Gummi’s only real claims to fame are having a slightly less un-famous brother and not getting into clubs, which while funny of course, wouldn’t land him on this blog. But I just heard he was spotted at a KFC event the other day, and honestly, I don’t think I can come up with a better advertisement for vegetarianism than having this kid roll around town in his KFC shirt he’s so proud of . . .

Check out this KFC protest organized by PETA Asia-Pacific in Hong Kong yesterday. This is truly a global campaign, with demonstrations happening in about 100 countries so far. KFC needs to wake up and realize that people all over the world are against grotesque cruelty to animals, and the sooner it makes the simple animal welfare improvements we're pushing for, the better.

Want to organize a demo like this where you live? Get in touch here.

Finally. This project has been in the works for longer than I care to admit, and it's incredibly exciting for me to see the beautiful, beautiful final product. A lot of people have been working really hard on this, so I did want to particularly thank my friend Drew, who generously donated his time and expertise and was a huge help in the early stages, as well as Shawn from our Web department, who crafted it into the masterpiece it is now—and who had to deal with me making obnoxious demands of him, like, "This is good, Shawn, but can you make a version with Satan in the background?" The generator is all part of the newly revamped Kentucky Fried Cruelty Campaign site, so you should probably check that out too. It’s pretty much the worst thing to happen to Colonel Sanders since people found out he wasn’t really a Colonel.

You can reward yourself for having read all the way through my little self-congratulation fest by clicking the sign below to play around with the generator yourself. It really is something special. And I promise that's the last time you'll see me gratuitously patting myself on the back in this blog.

Thanks to a few compassionate Kentucky residents, including the insuppressible Lindsay Rajt, who works on our KFC Campaign out of Louisville, David Novak, the CEO of KFC's parent company, got more than he bargained for out of an evening at a local restaurant on Friday night. Lindsay and company were in the midst of a well-attended KFC protest that was drawing a lot of attention in downtown Louisville when a passerby shouted out that Novak was eating at Seviche restaurant just down the street. Lindsay and a fellow activist got into their vehicle (which, by a stroke of good fortune, happened to be a large black truck with a video screen set to play images of chickens suffering live scalding, debeaking, and other abuses) and circled the restaurant until the entire wait-staff came out to gawk. Despite a slightly unpleasant incident in which the chef thought a good way of handling the situation would be to spit in people's faces, the protest was a big success. At the very least, it probably put David Novak off his dinner.

In case you didn’t catch the Wall Street Journal article this morning, I wanted to tell you about a new approach we’re taking in our KFC Campaign.

Most people don’t know this, but KFC’s top executives like to boast about being good Christians. They donate large sums of money to a prominent evangelical Christian church, which one of them ran before joining KFC in 2003. That’s all well and good of course, but actions speak much louder than words, and the reality here is that the way the 850 million chickens killed each year for KFC are abused is a complete mockery of basic Christian values. It is completely unfathomable to me for people who claim such virtue to turn a blind eye to the extreme suffering that they have the power to stop.

My question to them is this: What would Jesus think of the fact that you’re not willing to even lift a finger to help the 850 million chickens killed for your restaurants, even though it is entirely within your power to do so? I’m not trying to be some Biblical scholar here, but honestly, it is just plain evil to continue to cause massive suffering when there are simple changes that can be made, and have been made by other fast food joints.

Well, if they’re not willing to listen to their own animal welfare advisors and the thousands of outraged people all over the world, maybe they’ll listen to the most powerful and influential religious figure in the world, Pope Benedict XVI, the head of the Catholic church. In case you haven’t seen it, here is a famous quote from Pope Benedict, "Animals, too, are God's creatures. ... Degrading them to a commodity seems to me in fact to contradict the relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible." Sums it up pretty nicely I think.

Anyway, we’ve made leaflets with the Pope’s picture and quote, along with all the gory details of what KFC does to chickens, and we’ll be distributing them at KFCs worldwide. If you attend church, you can order a batch to share with your congregation.

Let’s hope this at least nudges KFC in the right direction . . .