Gallup: Young Americans Find Fur More "Moral" than Research
Is Public Relations the Key?

By FCUSA Communications Director Simon Ward

Much to the chagrin of the industries involved, animal testing and fur have long been used as barometers of American attitudes towards animal use. Most people already have clear-cut opinions ready to go, and the pollsters love them for it. Leather, horse racing or circus elephants, by contrast, just require too much thought when it comes to weighing the big moral issues of the day.

Now the Gallup Organization has pitted the two giants of animal polling in a head-to-head "Values and Beliefs" survey, with results that are encouraging for those in animal agriculture and depressing for medical researchers.(1)

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This May, Gallup asked a thousand adults across America about the moral acceptability of "medical testing on animals" and "buying and wearing clothing made of animal fur". They were not asked to compare one with the other, simply to judge each on its own merits.

The results showed that the majority of Americans support both of these activities. Asserted Gallup's contributing editor in her analysis of the poll, "animal rights issues don't currently strike a chord in the hearts and minds of most Americans."(2)

But more interesting than the discrete percentages is the comparison between the two sets, especially among responses from young people.

Sixty-two percent of Americans consider medical testing on animals to be morally acceptable, while an almost identical 63% find wearing fur acceptable.

That in itself will be mildly surprising to some. Society deems an activity "moral" or "immoral" based largely on the perception of need - of the end justifying the means. Fur clothing can be justified on many different levels, but given the competition from high-tech petrochemical synthetics, few would still consider it an absolute necessity. Medical testing, on the other hand, has led to treatments that save millions of human lives each year - about as necessary as it gets.

A tempting explanation for the parity in ratings would be that one group of people supports both fur and medical research, while the other opposes them both. But a different story is revealed when Gallup breaks the poll down into age groups: 18-29, and 30+.

In the case of fur, there was almost no difference across the age groups: 62% vs. 63%.

In the case of medical testing, however, just 47% of 18-29-year-olds found it morally acceptable, compared with 65% of the older group.

That older people are more supportive of medical research can be explained by the fact they have more experience of sickness, making them more aware of the role of medicine in keeping them alive.

But two apparent anomalies are less easily explained.

Firstly, a similar age-based argument has been made in the past for fur that no longer seems to apply: that the cost of many furs puts them beyond the reach of younger people, making it less likely that those same people will appreciate them.

And secondly, fully 15% of the exact same young pollees find fur acceptable but medical testing on animals unacceptable. If this were simply an issue of animal rights, why should mink, fox, rabbit and sheep be viewed differently from lab rats, beagles and ferrets?

Public Relations

At least in part, the answers must lie in the effectiveness of the industries' public relations.

Neither fur nor medical research is lacking in strong messages. Fur is biodegradable and sustainable, not to mention beautiful and warm, while medical research provides life-saving cures for humans and animals, and most testing is required by law for safety reasons anyway.

So why is the fur message getting across to younger people so much better?

For sure, it wasn't always the case. Until the mid-1980s, America's animal agriculturalists felt little or no need to explain themselves to the public. Food simply arrived on people's tables and clothes were put on their backs, and consumers were largely ignorant about where they had come from.

"This made us attractive targets for the emerging conflict industry, specifically the sector opposed to animal use by humans," explains Teresa Platt, executive director of Fur Commission USA. "Targeting young, impressionable minds, they launched campaign after campaign of lies and misinformation, determined to drive us out of business. The fur industry had to respond or die, but we were totally unprepared."

From a peak of $1.8 billion in 1985, US fur retail sales slumped 45% in just four years. "There were other factors involved, such as a weak stock market and a lack of innovation among designers," recalls Platt, "but countering the animal rights message became one of our top priorities."

Despite its best efforts, however, the industry continued to struggle until technology turned the world of information on its head. "We might never have turned things around without the Internet," says Platt.

Far and away the favorite medium for young Americans in search of information, the Internet also enables organizations such as Fur Commission USA to respond to misinformation campaigns with a speed and efficiency previously inconceivable.

"Animal rights groups have thrived on the Internet, but so have we," says Platt. "In the past, PeTA would mail flyers to children telling them farmed furbearers were wild animals, or that petrochemical clothing was more environment-friendly than natural fibers. Sometimes it would take us months to find out what garbage they were reading, and when we did, we had no way of reaching them to set the record straight. But on the Internet, everyone's washing is out on the line, side by side. People can make a direct comparison, and that can only work in our favor."

"We've made tremendous efforts in the past five years to reach young people through the web, explaining all about natural fiber fur, sustainability and biodegradability," says Platt. "Now sales are back to their old levels, and provided we continue to stay focused on educating young people - tomorrow's consumers - they're going to go even higher."(3)

Meanwhile, the medical research community has at best been holding its own.

Traditionally, medical research has been known for having a solid, unwavering core of support, people who feel passionately that the benefits outweigh the sacrifice in terms of animal life. Researchers have also leaned heavily on governments for support, since governments mandate testing for a whole range of products, not just medicines and treatments.

Like the fur industry, they have been targeted by animal rightists, and historically they have taken some major hits, albeit mostly over tests related to product safety rather than medicine. Was it really necessary to test cosmetics on rabbits, or use bears in car crash tests? The public responded with a resounding "No".

Even though such tests have stopped, animal testing still carries a stigma from those times, and it is a fact that some medical research carried out today remains visually shocking.

But explaining the importance of such tests to youngsters can be extremely difficult.

The fur industry has a head start here - life experience. Give a child a pair of rabbits, and in short order he will learn about renewable natural resources. And when a rabbit dies and is buried, then dug up again, he learns about biodegradability - a message reinforced by the old plastic bag he found while digging the hole.

But when the child is told by an animal rights group that medical tests involving animals can all be simulated on a computer, and a research facility counters by saying that's simply not true, who does he believe? Since one group claims to love his rabbit while the other wants to kill it, it's small wonder animal rightists find the young so easy to recruit.

Coalition Building

The Internet has also made it easier than ever before for resource providers to forge alliances in the common struggle against anti-use groups.

Twenty years ago, the majority of resource providers were yet to be touched by extremism, and chose to ignore the plight of the unfortunate few. In time, though, the writing on the wall became too clear to ignore. If the whalers, sealers and trappers were driven out of business, that would not be end of the story; someone else would be next.

Nowadays, of course, the unwanted attentions of extremists have become part of life for everyone from fishermen to SUV dealers, loggers to property developers, and miners to tour operators. And with the help of the Internet, these people are talking, sharing experiences and pooling expertise.

The level of synergy now is extraordinarily high because businesses have recognized the similarities in the arguments they use to defend themselves. No one needs to reinvent the wheel anymore.

If a timber operation comes under attack from an environmental group, there are legions of other resource users out there lining up to help. You just take their arguments, change the names, and do a little fine tuning - just as the anti-use groups have been doing for years.

The medical research community, however, has been reluctant to get involved in this coalition-building revolution - a fact that might help explain its comparatively low acceptance among youths.

Among animal users, medical researchers have always considered themselves apart from the herd. The work they carry out is fundamentally different to food and clothing production, or to the use of animals for companionship, sport or entertainment.

When it comes to public relations, therefore, the medical research community has opted not to risk clouding its arguments by presenting them in a broad context of whether animal use by society is acceptable. Defending research for a new cancer treatment becomes infinitely harder if you are perceived as sharing a bed with ranchers, lumberjacks and longliners.

Or so the thinking goes. It is arguably incorrect, not least because resource providers are also heavily involved in medical research with broad benefits to society, albeit not in human medicine.

Fashion

The challenge facing public relations professionals in the two sectors is also very different because fur's fortunes are tied to fashion, while medicine is as untrendy as sack cloth.

Fur is currently enjoying a popularity rivalling that of the mid-80s, and the influence this will have on young consumers is inevitable.

"Of course, this is a chicken and egg situation," observes Alan Herscovici, executive vice president of the Fur Council of Canada. "Are people more accepting of fur because it is fashionable, or is it fashionable because it is more accepted?"

But the fundamental reason for fur's increasing popularity among young people is no riddle, he believes.

A recent survey commissioned by the Council and the Fur Institute of Canada spotlighted remarkable interest in fur among younger women, with 6% of 18-24 years old saying they were thinking of buying a fur garment in the next year.(4)

"That speaks volumes about the sea change in perceptions," says Herscovici. "A few years ago, those same youngsters might have expressed a desire to own a fur in their lifetimes. But now they see fur very much as being fashionable and affordable."

New techniques developed in the last few years now enable designers to work with fur much as they would with any other material, and that means they can cater to a much broader market.

"Teenagers who could never have afforded, and never wanted, grandma's full-length mink now have a whole range of hip options for tight budgets," says Herscovici. "There are fur weaves, knits, velvets, ribbons and bows, in any color you want, and you don't have to start with the most expensive materials. For a couple of hundred dollars you can leave the store in a rabbit vest and sheepskin boots. Once your career takes off, the mink will still be waiting for you!"

And therein lies another important task recognized by fur's public relations experts: convincing young consumers that the progression from everyday materials such as leather and sheepskin to what society generally thinks of as "furs" is a natural one.

"There's always been a tendency for kids, especially in the cities, to act as if leather grew on trees, and until recently we even had fur protesters showing up in leather shoes," says Herscovici. "But once we get their attention, they quickly catch on that leather is just fur without the hair on, and sheepskin is sheep fur. They realize they've been wearing fur all along, and swapping their leather jacket for beaver ceases to be an issue."

But for the medical research community such opportunities to educate young minds are few and far between.

From time to time, a celebrity will suffer an affliction still beyond the powers of medicine to cure, and he or she will begin campaigning for greater awareness of the condition. And that is as "fashionable" and attention-grabbing as medical research ever gets.

PR professionals and fundraisers must seize the window of opportunity and milk it for all it's worth, all the while rueing the fact that youngsters find their work as exciting as a bag of dirt.

NOTES:

(1) Values and Beliefs poll. Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,000 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted May 2-4, 2004. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.

(2) "Americans Unruffled by Animal Testing", by Gallup contributing editor Heather Mason, May 25, 2004.

(3) See US Fur Sales Climb Again in 2003 for Record Sales of $1.8 Billion, Fur Information Council of America press release, Aug. 9, 2004.

(4) See Men and Young Consumers Turn On to Fur, Fur Council of Canada press release, Feb. 12, 2004.

SEE ALSO:

Fur's Hot Again as Animal-Rights Message Skips a Generation, Chicago Tribune, Jan. 21, 2004.

Trust in Agriculture and Support for Freedom of Food Choice is High, Animal Agriculture Alliance press release, Apr. 5, 2004.

© 1998-2005 Fur Commission USA

For further information contact: Teresa Platt, Executive Director, Fur Commission USA, PMB 506, 826 Orange Avenue, Coronado, CA 92118-2698 USA, (619) 575-0139, (619) 575-5578/fax, furfarmers@aol.com, www.furcommission.com.

To take a cyber-tour of a fur farm, visit Fur Commission USA's Fur on Film at http://www.furcommission.com/video/index.htm

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