46 . Glasgow Business June 2016
BIG TALKS By Gregor Hollerin, Senior Account Manager, The BIG Partnership
When celebs die, sharing isn’t always caring
Unashamed and tenuous piggy-backing off a celebrity’s death to get some brand engagement is not a good idea. Grief is personal, so think before you tweet
T Denial
‘Nooooooooooooooooooooo! Surely another rock legend can’t be gone?? Heaven is going to have one HELL of a rock band.’
Anger ‘I am SICK and TIRED of hearing Purple Rain.’
Bargaining
‘Prince is dead. Bowie is dead. Lemmy, Harper Lee, Abe Vigoda, Chyna, Alan Rickman, all dead this year. But Please. Please. Bety White, HANG IN THERE.’
Guilt
‘I wish somehow, someway, I could have told David Bowie the impact he had on me, my music and my outlook on life.’
Depression
‘A life without Severus Snape isn’t a life worth living.’
Acceptance and Hope ‘Ah well another one gone. R.I.P. Nelson.
“Now, with the advent of social media, anyone with a keyboard can be stars of their own biography”
All the best to Winnie and the kids xxx’ In case it needs saying: unashamed
piggy-backing off a celebrity’s death to garner some engagement is a bad idea. Oſten, brands don’t even bother to put a nice hat (a raspberry beret?) on their tweet. “Good morning everyone, happy Friday.
If you need our assistance we’re here until 8pm today, get tweeting. Have a good day!” A fairly standard tweet from an
unimaginative corporate account, other than signing off with “#RIPPRINCE”. Death is a very personal thing and can elicit
a personal, if sometimes narcissistic, response. By all accounts a Prince gig was a life-changing experience and Bowie’s ‘Life on Mars’ deserves its place among pop’s all-time great tunes.
However, while brands can adopt an individual touch, they should avoid grief at all costs. Te human touch is what separates your brand from the crowd, but when it comes to grief, it’s extremely difficult to shine unless it’s for all the wrong reasons. Unless something intrinsically links your
brand to a dead celebrity, stay out of it. For example, if Twiter was around when Elvis died, Prestwick Airport would be within its rights to tweet about the time Te King set foot on Ayrshire tarmac. However, if a car brand was to post “It’s now or never. Have a litle less conversation and a litle more action with our new model #RIPelvis”, I would advise taking at least three deep breaths before posting.
here are an unprecedented amount of celebrities dying. Whether that’s actually true, or it’s because there are now more celebrities than ever before,
would require analysis from somebody a lot more leſt-brained than I. Te BBC recently commented that in Q1 of 2012, they only published five obituaries, compared to 24 in the same period this year. Tere’s now a raſt of articles published on
various websites, capturing the public astonishment as the Grim Reaper continues his relentless scything through global A-listers. Until recently, when a celebrity died, the
public struggled through the seven-stages of grief in silent solitude, with no outlet to let the world know how said celebrity impacted upon their lives. Now, with the advent of social media, anyone with a keyboard can be stars of their own biography. Using my own Facebook, I selected specific examples of users dealing with grief in a very public manner.
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