Animals relationship to humans, when a human is actually looking at an animal, is an emotional experience.
The commercials appeal to emotions to get results, even if they do so in a syrupy manner.
Someone has to care about the animals.
The Torah contains the oldest and best animal rights statutes to be found anywhere.
Long story short, we are here, in part, due to animals.
When Noach’s son was asked what they did on the tayva to merit existing and surviving the flood, he responded that they took care of the animals.
Too often we respond to caring about animals by pitting them against humans, which is absurd. In most cases a human life in more valuable (exceptions would be various stripes of y’mach shemom), but by saying humans (for the most part) are more valuable, too often leads to the neglect of caring for animals.
Let people who want to care about animals do so without prejudice.