Imagine this -- billboards placed on headstones of graves.

In My Humble Opinion
1

I am not buying this idea.

2

Oh, I would so do that. Not on anyone else’s stone, but on my own. Of course, I would only do it for a product that I liked. Which, if it’s a yet-to-be-released video game, and I’m dead, might make it kind of difficult.

At the very least, I don’t find it as shocking and appalling as the people in that article do.

3

Do they plan on updating the ads? I envision a lone guy with a scraper, a folder of ads, and a pot of glue stalking up and down the rows of graves putting new posters on the headstones.

Grieving Wife: “Oh Irving, Irving!”
Scary Scraper Guy: “'Scuse me, ma’am.” ::scrape splat stick::
GW: “Ooh, ShadowMan 3 is coming! I’d love that! I’ll go buy it right now!”
SSG: “I bet Irving would want it that way, ma’am.”

Otherwise we’d have people wandering about mocking graves with especially dated ads on them. Imagine if you had a picture of Pitfall Harry on your grave - “New for Atari! Intense 1-button action!”

Knowing me, I’ll probably be buried with a controller for the NES anyway, but I won’t have to publicize it. :wink:

4

It’s about time those space-takers gave back to the community and made us aware of new products that could improve our lives.

5

There’s a story I’ve heard (possibly apocryphal, but too good to check) of a gravestone whose inscription reads something like:-

These guys are just moving with the times…

6

How to get really cheap publicity for your product:

  1. Make up an stupid idea to promote your product that’ll upset people.
  2. Have absolutely no intention of doing it.
  3. Wait for a slow news day.
  4. Put out press release that says that you intend to promote your product this way.
  5. Stand back and wait for lots of column inches of outrage. If you’re really lucky they’ll rope in horrified quotes from other organisations. Hopfully no-one will notice how patently ridiculous the idea really is.
  6. Congratulations, you have got tons of publicity for minimal cost.

Of course the newspaper knows as much as you do how the whole thing is just a publicity stunt, but who cares if it fills newspapers? The only ones wasting their time are the organisations duped into commenting on it.

7

Personally, I’m much more appalled at the quality of Acclaim’s games than any advertising gimmick they can come up with. WTF are their programmers thinking anyway?!