People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, masters of guerrilla PR, must be thrilled with their latest stunt. When the group heard that budget problems forced Colorado Springs to remove trash cans from public parks, it "offered" to pay for anti-meat ads on the cans. The ads, showing models wearing bikinis made of lettuce, supposedly would have paid for the cans to be put back in the parks.
Brilliant, of course. Not the idea of sponsored trash cans. The idea of proposing sponsored trash cans bearing a controversial message with a risque image in a conservative town that PETA knew never would have accepted them. You can't pay for this kind of coverage, and PETA got it for free. Today's Sun ran an earnest story from the Los Angeles Times, picking up from an AP story a couple days ago.
Here's an excerpt from the editorial from the Colorado Springs paper:
Boy, she must have giggled after that interview. PETA never even said how much money they were offering.