The Daily BuzzShoe company apologizes for joking about dead dogs
Outdoor apparel company Pearl Izumi crossed the wrong demographic in a recent running shoe ad: devoted dog owners who became outraged at a joke about running their dogs to death.
Pearl Izumi apologized on Facebook yesterday for publishing an ad in Canadian Running Magazine that featured a dog lying motionless on a trail as its owner tried to resuscitate it. They wrote:
As most of us here at Pearl Izumi are dog owners, we want you to know we would never, ever do anything to harm an animal.
Please know that we have deleted the ad and removed it from all future publications.
The ad was part of a marketing campaign for a new running shoe design, Project E:MOTION, which includes a list of upsides and downsides to running super-fast, such as fluid running motions and the risk of being mistaken for an animal.
One of the downsides was the risk of running too fast for your dog to handle, but it's since been removed from the website.
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Consumerist reproduced the image in its "Badvertising" section, along with a suggestion to companies that gags about dead dogs aren't the best way to sell running shoes.
Angry posters on the company's Facebook apology wrote Pearl Izumi should run a list of safety precautions for running with dogs, while others told them to stop taking a lighthearted ad so seriously.
Cosumerist also pointed to a video posted by the company in January about how to revive your dog if it's run itself nearly to death.
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