Death and dumb
Over in Austria an undertaker, urged by his PR people, parks his hearse at a blackspot in order to deter sloppy driving. The hearse bears the gloating message: ‘We’re always ready for you.’ The object? Driver sees it, thinks ‘That’s jolly clever,’ slows down and uses that undertaker next time she needs one. Win-win. Read the story in our own dear Daily Mail here.
Over in the US, advertising man Dan Katz damns the initiative: ‘Whenever humor is chosen as an attention-getter, the question always has to be: is it directly relevant to the selling message, or just a gimmick ... I’d argue that it falls short of the real goal, which is to strongly, indelibly link a meaningful benefit (not just death) to the advertiser’s brand ... Creepy for its own sale doesn’t sell, even if it does get top-of-mind awareness. The basics of marketing still apply, including the requirement of having a compelling reason why someone should consider you over your competition.’
To position death as macabre and avoidable is dumb. To use a hearse to strike terror is dumb. That’s so obvious it needs no elaboration. We're too frightened of death as it is.
So if you were an undertaker in the UK (perhaps you are?), would you accede to the wishes of a dead person aged just 85 and display this message on your hearse: "Smoking killed me - please give up!"?
Personal afterthought: I never see a dead person without feeling slightly envious. I often think of that line from Shakespeare: “After life’s fitful fever, he sleeps well.”
posted by Charles Cowling at
10:01
5 Comments:
Deep matters, interesting stuff, as usual. Mr Katz, I feel, rather misses the other, non-advertising point about the strategically-situated hearse, which is surely to shock people into thinking about their driving. It perhaps resembles the signs that say "Seven serious accidents here in the last 6 months" or whatever. A cold splash of reality as you approach the crossroads/blind bend.
Death through dangerous driving is certainly avoidable, though surely the hearse is over-elaborate; I'd still be looking at it and musing about it as I drove into the car in front....
A relative in a recent ceremony urged and pleaded with the audience to give up smoking because his dad had died from lung cancer. But surely smokers know, by now, the dangers involved? Perhaps the emotional appeal of a direct request in the context of a funeral might shock them into action. Dunno. But George Melly died of lung cancer, I think - I really can't imagine him asking for such a message. And without being callous, because I guess a smoking-induced disease is one of the less desirable ways to go, the man was 85 AND he smoked? I'd have thought he did OK...
Slightly envying those who are asleep after life's fitful fever - well, as so often, Charles, you raise a thought I shall need to explore in a post - thanks. But as for sleeping well - was it Spike Milligan, who when the inscription "only sleeping" on a tombstone was pointed out to him, said, "who does he think he's kidding?"
I sometimes think, when I see a dead person, (or talk to quite a few living ones) of Shel Silverstein's song:
"Oh the slithereedee
has crawled out of the sea,
he may catch all the others
but he won't catch me,
no you won't catch me old slithereedee,
you may catch all the others
but you wo
Brilliant, Jonathan! You probably know the Famous Last Words of the Civil War (USA) general who looked over the parapet and said "don't worry men, they couldn't hit a barn door at this dis "
though the Silverstein is more scary!
Positioning death as avoidable or macabre is not only useless, it is slow psychological poison. It helps neither the "consumer" or the business person. (Then why is almost all death-marketing that way?) On the other hand, making something trite and irrelevent out of it is just as dangerous.
Both are precisely what I aim to avoid with this new initiative. It's certainly a fresh take on the matter. Take a look, Charles, see what you think.
http://perpetuaspassages.com
Thomas
I agree that Mr Katz misses the point.
There has been plenty of research to prove that a repeated message or name gets more business. Why else would the local funeral director put the same ad in the local paper every week? This is "brand awareness" rather than "creating demand". Personally, I think it's a powerful message and I think that the only people unlikely to use that FD are the ones killed in road accidents, especially if they were distracted by that hearse.
I'm just surprised that a funeral director has got a spare hearse that he/she can leave lying around as an advert. Surely that's not the most efficient use of the company's resources?
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