Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight
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Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight
Social marketing, PR insight & thought leadership - from The PR Coach
Curated by Jeff Domansky
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Scooped by Jeff Domansky
May 11, 2016 5:11 PM
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This Darkly Clever Billboard for a Funeral Home Leaves Toronto Motorists Aghast

This Darkly Clever Billboard for a Funeral Home Leaves Toronto Motorists Aghast | Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight | Scoop.it

This billboard, which went up this week next to the Gardiner Expressway in Toronto, is provocative in the extreme—blatantly urging drivers to text and drive as a way of drumming up business for the advertiser, Wathan Funeral Home.


But there's a method to the madness.


It's actually a PSA from the Montreal office of agency John St., in partnership with out-of-home company Cieslok Media. No, Wathan Funeral Home isn't real. But it does have a website, where angry motorists who've Googled the place are confronted with this message:

 

If you're here, you've probably seen our "Text and Drive" billboard. And if you have, you probably came to this website to tell us what horrible people we are for running an ad like that. And you'd be right.

 

It is a horrible thing for a funeral home to do. But we're not a funeral home.

 

We're just trying to get Canadians to stop texting and driving, which is projected to kill more people in Ontario this year than drinking and driving. That's right. More. And while most people wouldn't even think about drinking and driving, over half of Ontario drivers admit to reading texts while behind the wheel. That's more than half of the drivers on the road today risking their lives, their passengers' lives and the lives of their fellow motorists and pedestrians.

 

Which should make you even madder than our billboard did....

Jeff Domansky's insight:

Toronto ad agency PSA is gaining lots of attention and plenty of reaction. What do you think about the approach?

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Scooped by Jeff Domansky
October 1, 2014 3:29 AM
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If Marketing About Avoiding Death Can Be Funny, Why Is Your Content So Somber?

If Marketing About Avoiding Death Can Be Funny, Why Is Your Content So Somber? | Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight | Scoop.it

The Dumb Ways to Die ads in Australia, like the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, show that public service campaigns have a lot to teach about marketing.Dumb Ways to Die can be considered among the most innovative public service campaigns ever. The campaign launched in November 2012 in Australia, aimed at promoting train safety, an onerous topic, boring to deliver yet important for public safety.


Railroad departments the world over run such campaigns to get commuters to listen to them, and to reduce the number of accidents and fatalities.


None of them comes to mind however when you’re asked to recall train safety campaigns. None barring Dumb Ways to Die. Why is that?...

Jeff Domansky's insight:

If your choices are boring or breakthrough, which one do you choose?

Shoko Aikawa's curator insight, October 2, 2014 7:32 AM

I have this game application before knowing this is for public campaign. However, Dump Way to Die's song is easy to remember and the game remind me to be safe at the public area. This is a great public campaign I have not ever seen in my life!

Aisha Dixon OHS's curator insight, March 20, 2017 2:20 AM
I love this ad. I am creatively minded and in my five year plan,  I would love to add a song or a drawing to the body of knowledge of Health and Safety that people remember and learn from. I love the catchiness and even though it's been several years since I have seen it, I remember some of the words. I would like whatever I make to be funny and memorable and hopefully more useful than 1951's Duck and Cover video which recommends using a picnic blanket to shield against an atomic bomb explosion.