Monday, June 6, 2011

Advertising or Terrorizing?

I was very surprised this morning when I read a post on the blog of  Unspun (http://theunspunblog.com) titled: "Coffins delivered to your doorstep: effective viral campaign or bad taste?".



Unspun said that he received a coffin, measuring about a meter in length, delivered by an ambulance to his office. The person delivering it said that there would be an event on June 9th. The coffin was painted brown with the word R.I.P above. Below it was Unspun's name and address. Inside were some flower petals and a rose, with a label attached that read on one side: “You are number: #4444″ and on the other side “www.restinpeacesoon.com.”  But the when he visited the site he found “under construction sign.”

The senders have also been active on Twitter with the handle @restinpeacesoon. They sent Unspun a message “Death is the surest calculation that can be made”
 
Later in the afternoon various TV stations reported that similar coffins were delivered to several mass media like Okezone, Detik.com, Kompas.com, The Jakarta Post, RCTI, SCTV, ANTV etc. And the person behind those coffins delivery was Sumardi MA the boss of Buzz & Co. an advertisement company. The coffins were part of his strategy to launch his book : " Rest In Peace Advertising : The World of Mouth Advertising. "

The Police has raided the office of Buzz & Co, and questioned Sumardi for delivering those coffins.

Considering that Coffin is a symbol of death for normal people and only used when people died, therefore the delivery of those coffins without mentioning the sender's clear identity would surely shock or even scare the recipients.. The impact would be very fatal if the recipient has heart problems.

Photo: Courtesy of Unspun.

17 comments:

Munir ardi said...

I See this news on TV tonight, very unusual and it's not funny

colson said...

It might have escaped the attention of these fools, but this is as low as one can get. It might also have escaped their attention that in a world in arms against terror, this "method" is, or is at least at the verge of, criminal.

I really hope some victims will file charges against the culprits ( because Police seems to have announced that without reporting them, they will not investigate).

Unknown said...

It is splog as well being in bad taste!

peter

Unknown said...

@Munir Ardi,
It is very disgusting.

@Colson,
I agree with you.
From the person behind all this, which is quite unknown, I have a funny feeling that the terror impact may have intentional for certain reason. For example to distract public opinion from bad that has been going on in reality like to failure to bring back Nazaruddin from Singapore, etc.

@Peter/Kiwi,
It is bad taste, a very bad taste.

Vainit said...

If Coffins delivered in my doorstep.. I think I can't sleep tonight Hehehheh

Unknown said...

@Vainit,
I think normal persons would feel the same way like you do.

r10 said...

ini strategi marketing yg buruk, tidak peka dgn kondisi sosial masyarakat

Unknown said...

@R10,
Ini strategi marketing yang luar biasa buruk tidak sensitif pada orang lain.

TUKANG CoLoNG said...

nih akun twitter pelakunya -> @sumarketer

Unknown said...

@TUKANG CoLoNG,
Terima kasih anda telah melengkapi.

Furree Katt said...

this is really shocking :O imagine if they sent it to some really old guy and the old guy died of shock right there :O

Unknown said...

@Furree Katt,
That's why people are angry and the Police detained him and raided his office.

triesti said...

Several satpams got fired from their job because they allowed the delivery of the coffin. That's really bad. If I were one of the satpam, I'd have taken buzz&co to court.

Beng Gee said...

If I was a recipient of the coffin I'd probably be scared to death! Definitely not a good kind of advertising strategy. It's like a sending off a threat actually!

Thanks for dropping by and for leaving a comment. Hope to see you around!

Unknown said...

@Triesti,
It's terrible that those satpam became victims of this crazy and selfish advertising.

@Beng Gee,
I agree with you that it's like sending off a threat.
Thank you for following my blog on Google Friends Connect.

Meutia Halida Khairani said...

whoa, if it was me who receive the coffin, i'll think that i'm number #4444 who'll lay in the coffin..

scary thing but somehow creative..

Unknown said...

@Meutia,
Creative? I say that it was a crazy idea.