Dani Alves And Lukas Podolski Anger Animal Rights Groups After Posing Holding Cow Hearts For Gory Adidas World Cup Campaign (Photos)

Chris Wright

3rd, June 2014

5 Comments

By Chris Wright

alves-heart

A new, needlessly graphic Adidas World Cup advertising campaign starring Dani Alves, Arjen Robben and Diego Costa among others has drawn widespread consternation from animal rights groups.

Along with the caption “My heart for my country”, Alves posted the above photo up on Instagram yesterday of himself looking all moody and menacing while holding a gelatinous, disembodied cow heart for the new Adidas “All In Or Nothing” promo campaign.

As well as a slew of queasy looks and arched eyebrows across the globe, the adverts have been admonished in Adidas’ native Germany, with German animal rights campaign group Four Paws admonishing Podolski for appearing in them.

According to the Daily Mail, a spokesperson for Four Paws said:

“[Podolski] says he’d give his heart but it wasn’t his heart was it? It was the heart of an innocent animal. If this was supposed to be some sort of PR stunt, then it misses the point.

“It’s bad enough that animals are slaughtered for food but to parade a heart, dripping blood and gore, is hardly a good way to advertise a sporting goods firm.”

Quite so, though Podolski defended the adverts by claiming that he actually would be happy to tear his beating heart from his own chest for his country:

‘I don’t find it disgusting,” Podolski said. “It just shows my promise to give my heart in our bid to win the World Cup. I and the rest of the team will give it all for Germany.”

alves-robben-costa-heart

Frankly, Adidas’ campaign is all a bit too unnecessarily gory for Pies’ liking, but it’s definitely done the job. People are definitely talking about it, one way or the other.

Mission: Accomplished.

Posted in Newsnow, World Cup

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5 Comments

  1. Alex says:

    Stupid ad but cant see why animal righties are up in arms – what do they want us to do with unwanted cows hearts? We eat cattle – get over it.

  2. romeo says:

    These animal rights nuts have nothing better to do with their time. There should help people suffering in the third world than fussing over hearts of dead cows. So they claim the rights of the cows were abused? The world is turning into a nutcase.

  3. Dave says:

    Diego Costa is giving something elses heart for someone elses country

  4. stoffel says:

    It’s a crap campaign, but do the animal rights group really think a cow was killed just for its heart specifically for this ad? Mind you, animal rights groups generally aren’t known for their logic or reason.

    And wouldn’t a pig’s heart have been a better size?

  5. Sjakie Meulemans says:

    @Dave: Sharp!

Leave a Reply to Dave