A Times Square spokesperson said that the goats were kept within the fences to keep them from escaping. (Photo: Facebook)
Oxes and tigers would be inconvenient, snakes and rats too scary, and dragons are hard to come by these days.
So when it’s the year of the goat, you take advantage of the fact that it’s a cute and relatively manageable animal, and roll in live ones to attract shoppers!
Both Times Square in Causeway Bay and apm mall in Kowloon Bay had this brilliant idea for a Chinese New Year promotion, with apm donning their goats in a traditional Chinese coat.
But both malls got a lot of flack from animal lovers across Hong Kong.
“The goats were recruited from a farm in New Territory and were supplied with adequate food and water supply at the venue. They were sent back to the farm right after the event,” a Times Square spokesman assured Marketing Interactive.
In an attempt to associate shopping malls with charity, apm let people feed the goats if they made a donation to Doctors Without Borders.
Apparently the mall neglected to let the organisation know that they’d be exploiting both Doctors Without Borders’ name and live animals.
The charity declared on their Facebook page that they were not informed about the fundraiser at all and that they would not be accepting any donations raised during the event.
An apm spokesperson said they apologised to Doctors Without Borders, explaining that they neglected to ask the organisation “due to an internal miscommunication”, reports the SCMP.
The SCPA also condemned the acts on their own Facebook page, saying that goats can be easily frightened in shopping malls, especially if they are not socialised. They recommended that they use cartoon goats next time.
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