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Marketing the modern corpse show
With brand managers and PR teams across the globe, Body Worlds and Premier shows are carefully managed marketing and PR enterprises.
Some key devices have been used to present corpse shows as credible.
The name
The name is crucial. Names such as Body Worlds, Body: the exhibition all give a certain amount of respectability to the enterprise. That is why our site is called CorpseShow.info, because it reveals the reality of using dead people for profit.
Partnerships
The corpse shows have been keen to find organisations with a high trust factor to partners. Science museums, Disney's Kidzworld.com and the Red Cross have all been used as partners, implying that you can also trust the corpse show industry and their marketing literature. Usually organisations charge for brand associations like this, to what extent corpse shows have paid for these partnerships is unclear, but likely.
Control of images
Images are carefully controlled and copy approval is sought for using images on-line. Use of images has to be linked to pieces about exhibitions and are time limited. We would probably have never been given permission to use images, although we would not as donors did not give us permission.
Positioning
When Body Worlds first toured ten years ago, it was presented as an artistic show. It was claimed that corpses were being arranged to reveal their inner beauty, much in the tradition of the Renaissance artists. Critics in the UK panned the artistic credits, after all, Damien Hurst had show how to use the dead in art. The branding of corpse shows as educational allows moral arguments to be seen as secondary.
Branding
Appointing good branding agencies is important. In 2008 Access Advertising was appointed to promote Body Worlds 4. Speaking about the show, and her agency's advertising work, Access account director Ruth Peevor said: "BODY WORLDS already has a strong brand identity that has worked extremely well for them internationally. Our challenge was to take elements of the existing brand and creative executions that had worked in other territories and adapt them for the Manchester market. This is the first time the show has been seen outside of London in the UK, and we are very proud to have played our part in delivering it to the North West."
Access also works with the slightly less gruesome clients Turtlewax, Miele Die Kuche, Greater Manchester Police, Haydock Park Racecourse and JD Williams.
www.accessadvertising.co.uk
Media spinning
A series of answers to media questions have been developed, answers that seem credible. Museums hosting corpse shows are given these answers. Here are some alternative answers to the standard list of questions.
http://www.spurdigital.com/case-studies/body-worlds-3-exhibit.html
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