madcomments

Dr Marten’s? Surely it would make more sense for Converse - ahem…Nike - to advertise on the back - or feet - of Kurt. He did die wearing them after all.

Hello Stuart, indeed Kurt popped his clogs in Converse - but that wouldn’t be v good taste for an ad campaign would it? Shoes the stars have died in…

It’s interesting to see that whilst Dr Martins consider it bad taste to feature dead icons in their advertising in order to sell product, the D&AD deem it to be a stroke of near-creative genius, having shortlisted BBC Radio 2’s ‘Elvis’ TV ad by Cut & Run Ltd for a pencil in this year’s awards. If a dead Kurt can’t wear DMs, why can a dead Elvis have Sugar Babes on backing vocals? Just where do you draw the line?

This commentator (never been called that before, so I’m climbing aboard the bandwagon) couldn’t care less about the ad (though asking the relatives might have been polite), but is fascinated by the process surrounding the apparent ‘furore’. Was that the term in the original release used to kick-start it?

When I first read about this it seemed to be some kind of student competition that got taken too far, and without the knowledge of senior agency or client. So far, so tee-hee…whoopsie: ‘They didn’t die with our boots on?”

Now it seems it is/was a commissioned piece, using a high-profile photographer, for a one-off ‘authorised’ insertion in some medium I’ve never heard of, like that would render it in better taste than being seen anywhere else. As most awards hounds will tell you, it’s quite easy to get a dodgy bit of ‘edginess’ mainstream with a complicit agency/client/minor-medium cabal, a little bit of MySpace or YouTube to ‘find’ it has been spread around, with a nudge from the PR division to kickstart the Daily Mail, and…ta-daa: a bit more than was ‘intended’.

So… what next? It was all actually a big hoot to get a bunch more PR value than the original, rather average concept warranted. Surely not?

Bless.

I think that the reason why it’s acceptable to find Elvis in corny ads and why there is such a backlash against Kurt is that they both embraced life differently. Elvis was all flash and glam, while Kurt, who probably didn’t like the price of DMs (which is why he wore Cons’), was about being independent from the corporate world. But this isn’t the worst thing that’s happened to Kurt since he died. His music is now part of video game thanks to his “loving” widow.

I am a mother and my son used to wear Dr Martens, he killed himself. I have been going through hell as well as his 12 year old brother, and if we had see my son in a ad for Dr Martens to sell products, I think we both would have breakdowns! How can anyone think of doing this? It makes me so sick!