Billy Mays "Zombie" to Be Resurrected in Ads, TV Shows
A direct marketing company and the Discovery Channel are already planning to resurrect the corpse of Billy Mays by continuing to run his ads and TV shows once his funeral is over, Ad Age reports.
The president of Media Enterprise, marketer of Mighty Mendit and Mighty Putty, said he will ask the Mays family to put Billy’s ads back on the air. The Discovery Channel will run “tribute” footage of Mays while it decides what to do with the season one finale and season two of Pitchmen.
BNET previously noted that because Mays was an infomercial king — and not, for instance, a chateau-owning agency founder like David Ogilvy — that the media seemed to assume it was OK to treat Mays’ death lightly. Age:
But Mr. McAlister, who counts himself as a friend of Mr. Mays for more than 14 years, said he isn’t ruling out putting the ads back on the air after he’s had a chance to talk with Mr. Mays’ wife at the funeral. “I’ve known Billy for 14 years, and Billy would want this absolutely,” Mr. McAlister said.
… But the show goes on for Discovery Channel, which had planned a marathon of episodes featuring Mr. Mays in the series “Pitchmen,” culminating in an airing of the series finale July 1.
“To celebrate a man who was larger than life, the network will run tribute promos honoring Billy Mays and never-before-aired moments throughout the day,” Discovery said in a statement. “A slate also will be added to the end-of-the-season finale in his remembrance.”
Discovery said it’s also planning a special tribute show for Mr. Mays, but that no decision has been reached regarding season two of “Pitchmen.”
Robert Passikoff, founder of consultancy Brand Keys, pointed out the screamingly obvious: That consumers are going to hate the exploitation of Mays’ corpse for financial gain:
“Consumers don’t react very well to disinterring celebrities,” he said. “It was the vogue a while back to do that, but it was a while back because the reactions were not as good as people hoped.”
Jim Edwards, a former managing editor of Adweek, has covered drug marketing at Brandweek for four years, and is a former Knight-Bagehot fellow at Columbia University's business and journalism schools. Follow him on Twitter or send him an email.
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