Corporate Australia doesn't support greyhound racing
Once advised of the problems that are part of greyhound racing, a host of companies have declared they will ensure their advertising will never run during dog racing shows.
CPG is running a campaign to let companies know what the community thinks of their support for greyhound racing. This support can be demonstrated through race sponsorships, on-track signage or advertising during greyhound racing programs. The passion and determination shown by CPG Facebook followers in contacting these companies has achieved great results. A number of major Australian and international organisations have cancelled sponsorships and withdrawn advertising. They have been eager to disassociate themselves from greyhound racing and willing to say so. We applaud these companies for acting with integrity and in support of animal welfare.This is “unreality TV” at its worst, designed to sanitise the animal suffering that occurs every day on Australia’s racetracks.
Major brands are recoiling from involvement in the greyhound racing program “Thrill of the Chase”.
Many companies are unware that their ads are appearing during the program, and are rejecting any association with greyhound racing, with some withdrawing their ads.
The latest episodes of the program are screening on 7two. The show has been created by Sports Entertainment Network (SEN) with Greyhound Racing Victoria.
CPG and our followers contacted a number of companies whose advertising appeared during the program. Here’s what they had to say.
Companies reject greyhound cruelty - 2020-2022
AAMI
“We were not aware our advertisement was running during this program and have reached out to our media agency to look at preventing this from occurring again. “
ANZ
“I can confirm, that any greyhound racing, horse racing or associated programs, are currently on a list of banned environments for ANZ advertising, which we share with our media partners like Channel Seven. Our media agency are currently following this up with the network to understand why our ad appeared during this program (both on 7mate and 7Plus) over the weekend, and to ensure that this doesn’t happen again in future.”
Arnott’s
“Please be assured we have previously requested that our advertisement does not coincide with the program. We are disappointed that this request has not been actioned effectively, however have now taken further steps to ensure it won’t happen again.”
Audible Australia
“We have investigated as this was not part of our planned media schedule and it appears that it was the result of an oversight which has now been rectified. We have now instructed our agency to ensure that we do not appear in any future episodes of The Thrill of the Chase.”
Aussie Broadband
“Our TV advertisements appear on a range of stations across Australia, and advertising during these programs does in no way constitute our approval support for the program or its content. We have taken your feedback into consideration and contacted the Seven Network (along with others) to request that our advertisements are not shown during any programming for either greyhound racing or horse racing. If you have any other enquiries, please don’t hesitate to reach out – – beautiful greyhounds are very important to us!”
Ballarat Appliance Warehouse Management
“As we have companion dogs ourselves we do not support animal cruelty. We will request that our advertising partners in future do not advertise during the below mentioned shows.”
Bega Cheese
“We typically purchase advertising via our agency by time-slots and not by program, and do not target or sponsor any form of gambling. We’ve asked our relevant teams to take into account your concerns going forward.”
Bendigo Bank
“You were correct in assuming that we were unaware that our advertisement was broadcast during this program and upon hearing this, we acted immediately to put a stop to ads going to air in these timeslots, for this program. We have put in place specific exclusions on this and other such programs to ensure that this doesn’t happen again. Bendigo Bank is committed to ensuring the humane treatment of animals and does not endorse greyhound racing.”
Best&Less
“We can confirm that we do not have paid spots booked in to any form of live racing. This may have been bonus activity in which we unfortunately don’t get any oversight on where they will be placed. We will share your feedback with our Marketing team to forward to Channel 7.”
BMW
“On behalf of BMW Australia, I would like to reassure you that BMW does not support greyhound racing or any sport involving animals. We have contacted our media agency to understand why placement of our brand’s advertising was broadcast during this time on Channel 7.”
BritBox
“First and foremost, BritBox in no way supports or condones animal cruelty in any form. We are taking this very seriously and have passed this information to our marketing team who will be working with the local media agency to investigate and take corrective steps to avoid this happening in future.”
BWH Hotel Group
I can reassure you and confirm that BWH Hotel Group, Australia (BWH) that comprises Best Western Hotels & Resorts and a number of other brands has not placed any such advertising with Channel 7 Two either in this or any other previous Financial Year and has no plans to advertise in any media programs associated with this activity.
Carpet Court
“We were unaware that our advertisement had been screened during this program and obviously do not condone such activities. …
Our Corporate Social Responsibility frames an important part of our value set as a brand, which is why your email is important to us. I would like to personally assure you that we have spoken with our media agency to ensure that this does not happen again in the future.”
CASA
“CASA does not support animal abuse. We have contacted our media placement agency and have excluded ‘The Thrill of the Chase’ and any other related shows from future placements.”
Choices Flooring
“The advert was not bought to be displayed within the television show ‘Thrill of the Chase’. We have been made aware via our media agency this was a bonus advert randomly selected into the show. We have asked our agency to be aware of such placements in the future.”
Citibank Australia
“We do not support greyhound racing and The Thrill of the Chase is on our programming blacklist. We’ve investigated and found that the placement was made in error by the network due to program rescheduling. Our agency has spoken to the network and reiterated to their media, inventory and traffic teams that all racing programs of any type are blacklisted for all Citi branded products. The network have apologised for the error.“
Coca-Cola Europacific Partners
“We are committed to the humane treatment of animals and take issues of animal welfare very seriously. We have in place an Animal Welfare Policy that guides all our decision making in this area. We are continually reviewing this policy to ensure it reflects external developments and community sentiment, and we will discuss the media placement you raise below with our media agency.”
Coles
“We have not made any bookings for ads to appear during this program. The only recent instance where this has occurred was the result of a late programming change by the media outlet. We have reviewed future programming to confirm we have no further ads scheduled to appear during this program.”
Colorbond
“We have asked our agency to ensure our ads are not placed during this show.”
Deakin University
“We have contacted our agency regarding this placement and we definitely should not be appearing against this content.”
Dettol
“We want to let you know that this has been escalated to our Marketing Team and they have already actioned this with the Media Buying Agency to ensure that the Dettol ad is withdrawn from airing during the program.”
Elevit
“We have reached out to our media agency to prevent us from appearing in any greyhound racing content.”
Endeavour College of Natural Health
“It certainly was not our intention to advertise during this broadcast, as Greyhound racing is not a cause that aligns with Endeavour’s values.”
Farmers Union (Greek Yoghurt)
“This was an unfortunate error in programming that occurred and meant our ad showed up in the Greyhound racing. We don’t buy spots in that type of program, so this might have fallen through the cracks due to a late program change, but in any event we’ve reached out to Seven to ensure that no Farmers Union spots appear in Greyhound racing moving forward.”
Federation TAFE
“I have investigated your concerns and have taken action to ensure that our advertisements will not appear on programs of this type in the future. I can also confirm that the advertisement in question was a “bonus” ad and not paid for by us. Unfortunately, this also meant that we were not made aware of its placement during this particular program.”
Flight Centre
Please be assured that Flight Centre Travel Group does not support greyhound racing and that the placement of the adverts was not intentional. Our contract with the company that manages our advertising on Catch Up TV operates differently to those for regular free-to-air TV. With free-to-air we provide a list of programming and content that we instruct them not to feature us against, which includes greyhound racing and its tie to animal abuse.”
Godfreys
“We weren’t aware that our ads were airing during this program and have since put measures in place to ensure we will not appear in such programs in the future.”
Goodman Fielder
“Our team commenced an investigation with our media buying agency and can confirm that there will be no further Helga’s brand advertising in alignment with Greyhound Racing. Helga’s does not have a relationship with the Greyhound Racing industry in Australia.”
Headspace
“we have flagged with both our media agency and the networks to ensure that no ads of ours (CSA or otherwise) are placed around content like this.”
HelloFresh
“HelloFresh believes in the humane treatment of animals … we have requested that our advertisements do not appear during the Thrill of the Chase, or any similar programming going forward.”
Honda
“we were not aware a Honda advertisement had aired as part of this program being broadcast. we have instructed our media agency to ensure no further association with this particular program, as well as any related programs.”
Hoselink
“I completely understand where you are coming from and this is something our company does not want to be associated with. We do not choose when our advertisements are aired, they are aired at random times so we were not aware that our advertisement aired during that time. I will pass your message on and thankyou for making us aware.”
Isuzu
“We can assure you that this is not a program that we have purposefully looked to associate ourselves with and we will certainly review this with our agency and do our best to avoid it for future campaigns.”
Kathmandu
“I have advised our media agency and the networks that regardless of booking method, no future placements can have any alignment to wagering, or programming that can be seen as harmful to animal welfare. They are working this current bonus placement to remove it, effective immediately. I appreciate you taking the time to bring this to our attention and for all the positive work you and the Coalition are doing to protect Greyhounds.”
Kellogg’s
“We would like to confirm Kellogg’s has not booked any media slots during the broadcast of Thrill of the Chase.”
Kia
“I have checked with the marketing team and have been assured it is not a show we sponsor nor choose to advertise in. Rather, we received a bonus ad placement and it appeared during this show on this one occasion.”
Lego
“This is most certainly is not in line with the LEGO Brand values and the team are not aware of this forming part of any of our media schedules. We are promptly investigating this with our media agency.
Lite n’ Easy
Thank you for your message and apologies for the delay getting back to you. We will request that this program not be included in any further placement of Lite n’ Easy TV commercials.
Longines
“Our marketing department will raise this internally and talk to the team at Channel 7 on how to work with them in a more considered manner.”
Lotterywest
“Lotterywest does not sponsor or support greyhound racing. … we were unaware we featured during the ‘The Thrill of the Chase’ program. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We’ve made note of this and are working to put processes in place to prevent this in the future.”
Macquarie Bank
“In line with Macquarie’s advertising policy our advertisement should not have run during this program and aired without our knowledge. Our team are currently addressing the issue with our media agency to prevent any reoccurrence.”
Mars Wrigley
“Mars Wrigley has measures in place to minimise the likelihood of its advertisements appearing in programs like Thrill of the Chase. Mars Wrigley is working with its media agency to put in place additional measures to avoid this from occurring in the future.”
Mazda
“We do have a policy against this, so we have shared this with our internal advertising team and our media buying agency. They will check if this is the case and if it is, ensure if it removed.”
Officeworks
“We’ve discussed this with our media agency to ensure spot placements do not occur in this or similar programming in the future on TV placements or on-demand streaming channels.”
RACQ Bank
“At RACQ we take animal welfare seriously and have a partnership with AWLQ. We have reached out to our Marketing team who run the ads and have flagged these concerns with them, and we will investigate this issue further.”
Pandora
We have contacted our media agency and expressed our concerns – as we certainly do not endorse any activity that compromises the welfare and safety of animals – and we will absolutely seek to ensure that Pandora is not present in this or any such similar programming moving forward, as is our guideline to networks.
RAMS
We are very sorry to have caused offence by airing our ad during this program. RAMS does not support greyhound racing and we will reach out to our media agency to ensure our ads do not air during this program in the future.
Real Insurance
“The thoughts and views shared on The Thrill of the Chase are in no way a reflection of the values of Real Insurance. Our media placement is scheduled by time slot and not by program, however as animal lovers we will look into this further with our media buyer.”
Rebel
“Our media agency has guidelines to ensure placement such as this does not happen so they will immediately review and stop anything that might be scheduled.”
Road Safety Commission, WA
“The Road Safety Commission is completely unaware that our eRideables advertising was occurring during ‘Thrill of the Chase’ and we certainly do not support greyhound racing. We have been in touch with our media agency and will be attempting to change-out our advertisements from ‘Thrill of the Chase’ to another timeslot with 7TWO.”
RSPCA
“We have looked into the matter and the insurance company has contacted the media agency responsible to request that RSPCA Pet Insurance ads not be played during this program in the current or future seasons. … To try to avoid this type of negative association, we are looking at whether we are able to ‘blacklist’ certain programs that conflict with our policies.”
Samsung
“We do not intentionally book media spots during this programming. We have put in further measures in place to prevent this occurring in the future.”
SC Johnson
“We would like to update that the respective team had got in touch with the advertisement team and requested for the ad to not be displayed in the remaining episodes.”
Snapfish
“We have had our media agency investigate your query and can confirm that our Snapfish purchased or paid media placement did not include any placement within the mentioned program. We suspect that this placement may have occurred due to random bonus spots provided from time to time by the network. We will continue to exclude this type of program from our Snapfish booked media placement and as an additional measure we have requested our media agency to ensure we are not placed on either bonus or filler lists that would see us appearing on this program.”
Steel Blue
We have removed all advertising on “Thrill of the Chase”. We want to ensure our values align in all aspects of our business including advertising.”
Suzuki
“We have been advised by our marketing team that our advertisement was played during the show as a ‘bonus spot’. These spots are not chosen nor paid for by Suzuki Australia. We have flagged with our agency to put a block on our advertising being played during this program.”
Swyftx
“We have rectified this with our media agency and we will ensure that we don’t appear against this programming in the future.”
The Royal Automobile Club of WA
“we have a clear and firm values-based policy on where our advertisements can be placed and have reinforced this with our agencies to ensure there is no risk of this occurring in future.”
The Smith Family
“We actually weren’t aware that our ad ran in this show. We do receive a lot of bonus media and sometimes our ad can be placed in shows that we have not specifically requested. After receiving your email we reached out to our media agency to follow up on this and they’ve confirmed, as you mentioned, that the ad did run during _Thrill of the Chase._ We’ve since requested that we do not run our ads in this show (paid or bonus) and our Marketing Manager has also requested that we put additional steps in place to avoid our ads running across shows that promote gambling or animal cruelty.”
Tyrepower WA
“I can confirm Tyrepower WA do not support or condone animal cruelty in any way. We have taken action to ensure that Tyrepower advertisements do not appear on programs of this type in the future.”
UBank
“Our team is speaking to our media agency today to request that our advertisements do not appear during these programs.”
Unilever
“I would like you to know that our values are not aligned with greyhound racing or any other animal racing and by no means do we want Dove or any of our Unilever brands to be associated with this kind of sport. Unfortunately, the Dove ad placements were placed in error. We have contacted our media agency and can confirm they have now been removed!”
Vodafone
“Thank you for your email and bringing this to our attention. I will contact our media agency and have our ads removed from the programming.”
Woolworths/Big W
“we have since taken additional steps with our media partner to ensure there is no risk of our advertising playing during this or similar programs moving forward.”
Youi
Thanks for your message – we appreciate you taking the time to share your concerns with us and supporting something so important. Please rest assured Youi does not sponsor or support greyhound racing and we have no desire to be associated with it. Sometimes our ‘bonus’ television advertisements run at unspecified times, however we have passed your email onto our marketing team that will look into this right away.
Quest Apartment Hotels were named as a partner on the Greyhound Clubs Australia website
17 July 2020: Thank you for bringing our attention to this. Quest Apartment Hotels has been acting as an accommodation partner for Greyhound Racing Australia by providing a small discount to members. We have never provided financial backing. However, in light of this post and deeper consideration, we have decided to remove our support to Greyhound Clubs Australia and will no longer be providing aid of any nature. Please know, Quest Apartment Hotels does not stand for the mistreatment of animals. We are taking this opportunity to evaluate our partnerships across the board to ensure that our values are properly aligned with those whom we support.”
Logo signs for Hit91.9 Bendigo, Triple M Bendigo, Channel 9 Bendigo, 9Go! Bendigo and 9Gem Bendigo displayed at Bendigo track. The five media channels are also sponsors for race meetings and Triple M Bendigo is the name sponsor of the Bendigo Cup.
Note: These Bendigo TV and radio channels are owned by Southern Cross Austereo (SCA). All logo signs were removed in early July and as at 19 July 2020 no SCA media channels has sponsored a race meeting. SCA’s initial response was:
24 June 2020: “We appreciate your concerns about the greyhound racing industry which has been required to address serious animal welfare issues in recent years. … Greyhound Racing Victoria’s Bendigo Cup event is a significant contributor to Southern Cross Austereo’s Give Me 5 for Kids charity.
25 June 2020: I confirm that all trackside advertising in respect of those brands is due to be removed. (Tony Hudson, Head of Legal and Corporate Affairs, SCA)
Jims’ Mowing sponsored Geelong Racing Club for six years (this cancellation courtesy of SA independent researcher and writer Matilda Duncan) click here for the full story
26 March 2020: “Our sponsorship has ceased with Greyhound Racing Geelong.”
O’Brien Electrical and Plumbing sponsored races at Mount Gambier and Angle Park, SA
13 March 2020: “Our sponsorship policy states we do not support events or organisations that are involved in the cruelty of animals. All sponsorships require head office approval, and no approval has been granted for greyhound racing. Our policy was recently reviewed and it has been communicated with all our franchisees and employees.”
Elders Insurance sponsors races at Mandurah, WA
31 March 2020: CPG contacted Elders Insurance as they are once again sponsoring racing.
11 March 2020: “This is not a national Elders Insurance sponsorship. We encourage our local agencies to support their communities through local sponsorship. We are now working very closely with our Distribution Manager in WA as well as the local agent to review this partnership. I can assure you we do take these matters seriously and will continue to review all our agent partnerships.”
GJ Gardner Homes sponsored races at Sale, Victoria
12 March 2020: “While the Franchisee’s for this area are actually keen dog lovers, after careful consideration and in light of the negative comments being posted they have ended their sponsorship of this facility. The signage will be removed in due course.”
19 July 2020: GJ Gardner Homes continues to sponsor
Husqvarna was name sponsor of Maitland Gold Cup, NSW
20 March 2020: “Our independent dealer network actively support their local community through donations, sponsorships and partnerships. Our dealers are independently owned and operated, and as such are responsible for their local business decisions on these matters. On this occasion Hunter Outdoor Equipment has entered into a sponsorship agreement with the Maitland Show Ground, as throughout the year this venue hosts a variety of events for the local and surrounding community. We have reached out to our dealer and are working closely with them to adjust the signage to better reflect the local business decision. Please be assured this is not a corporate sponsorship.”
Optus sponsored races at Sale, Victoria
12 February 2020: “We have reviewed our agreement with Sale Greyhound Racing Club and have withdrawn our sponsorship.”
Volkswagen was the Club Sponsor of Ballarat Greyhound Racing Club
28 January 2020: Volkswagen removes its logo from the Ballarat Racing Club’s website and stated, “Volkswagen again emphasises that it has no connection with greyhound racing. Sponsorship of the event at Ballarat was undertaken by the local dealer without our company’s knowledge and in contravention of our policy.”
Toyota Australia sponsored the Warragul Cup on 9 January 2020
23 January 2020: “Toyota Australia does not and will never sponsor greyhound racing. It does not align with our brand at any level. We have been working closely with the dealership to withdraw their sponsorship of these events.”
Increasingly, banks are developing investment policies to meet the concerns of ethically-minded consumers. While many banks will not invest in fossil fuels or tobacco, only a few take animal welfare into consideration. This means that our money could be used to support animal cruelty including that of greyhound racing.
Animals Australia has produced the chart on the right to rate the animal welfare record of the major Australian banks.
We applaud Bank Australia who is the only bank to meet the critiera across the four animal welfare areas as defined by Animals Australia. Additionally, they have recently updated their Responsible Banking Policy to state:
“We do not provide new loans to businesses whose primary purpose is to train horses or greyhounds for the purposes of racing and for gambling and entertainment.” Bank Australia
Source (updated May 2021): https://www.animalsaustralia.org/features/bank-measure-up-animal-welfare.php
RSPCA Australia considers that there are significant and entrenched animal welfare problems inherent in the greyhound racing industry.