It all started with poor wonderful Fred Astaire being unearthed to schill for a vacuum cleaner. Then it was John Wayne giving his famed growl up from the grave for a few cans of beer. There have been a bunch of others, Steve McQueen, Audrey Hepburn and the King of the Zombies – Orville Redenbacher, in a performance that would have done George Romero (and no one else) proud. The latest addition to this necropolis was a Dr. Martens campaign showing Kurt Cobain, Sid Vicious, Joey Ramone and Joe Strummer wearing the brand’s boots in Rock & Roll heaven.
The company stopped the campaign because of public outcry. Hurrah! Let’s hope there’s more where that came from. As was noted by someone else about the dead, “the good is oft interred with their bones.” Digging up those bones to borrow that good is a mistake. There is something truly horrific about resuscitating someone just so he or she can sell a vacuum cleaner or two.
And speaking of bad ideas: How about Doc Marten’s attempt to blame someone else for a campaign that got them exactly the attention they wanted? The Guardian quotes CEO David Suddens as saying, “Dr Martens did not commission the work as it runs counter to our current marketing activities based on FREEDM, which is dedicated to nurturing grass roots creativity and supporting emerging talent. As a consequence, Dr Martens has terminated its relationship with the responsible agency.” It is a statement worthy of a certain White House. Responsible agency Saatchi & Saatchi, having already lost the account, quite rightly snickered very publicly at the idea that they ran an ad without the client first signing off on it.
It has always been my belief that ad agencies reaminated celebrity corpses, stored them in secret, celebrity-zombie compounds, and used them for these commercials.
Intern brains are cheaper than actually paying for talent.
Posted by: Scott | June 28, 2007 at 12:00 PM