Tragedy Inspires Most Tasteless Pitch Ever

You won't be surprised to learn that the Bad Pitch blog was the last thing on our minds during the horrific shootings in Aurora, Colorado. Like the rest of the nation, we took pause and our thoughts went to the families of the victims.


In the aftermath we assumed, naively, that the nation's collective shock would stop anyone in their right mind from trying to tie their pitch into this tragedy. Unfortunately, someone forwarded us a pitch this afternoon with the following subject line and introduction.


>> Subject: Dark Knight Survey Reveals Relationship Between Income And Chivalry



Hi, In the event of a tragedy like the Dark Knight Massacre, who would you want by your side on a first date? <<


And just to be clear about how tasteless and offensive this pitch really is? Here's the news release headline and subheadline.


>>First Date Survey Reveals Relationship Between Income and Chivalry

Would you take a bullet on a first date? Dark Knight survey conducted by dating website, WhatsYourPrice.com, reveals the true identity of a gentleman on a first date. Proving that generosity is 
not necessarily determined by the size of your wallet, Founder & CEO, Brandon Wade, found that dating someone generous, but not necessarily wealthy, could be the difference between life and death.<<

I'm going to stop there and note this is easily the most tasteless pitch we've ever received. As you'll see below, we've called out several bad pitches in the past for trying to capitalize on death.
Visibli Bites The Bad Pitch Apple

Daryl Toor is a Tool
Good Morning America Says WTF?!
Ken Lay's Dead? Let's Pitch the Client!
Mommy, We Get Dead Pitches

Why Did We Even Post This?
At the risk of stating the obvious, tying a pitch to someone's death needs to become an extinct practice. I have to believe that, as an extension of basic common sense, this is something the public relations industry, media relations professionals and even publicists can stop doing. If they can't? We will continue to out them to make sure it's clear that the vast majority of our industry does NOT stand by this practice.


:: written by Kevin Dugan, @prblog
Archiving Dispics: Domokun STFU n00b! uploaded by peatbogyeri