Everyone in the office was very sad to learn of yet more celebrity deaths this week, Victoria Wood and the legendary Prince.  Whilst the outpouring on social media of people’s grief and sadness is humbling and lovely to read, brands who decide to ‘pay tribute’ ie use the death in an infographic on social media to promote the brand is simply disrespectful not to mention very lazy when it comes to content.  The news of Prince’s death had broken only 12 hours before, but already six brands had posted self promoting tweets using his death, we name no names (just go to the Independent online’s article) but as PR’s we really think this is a step too far and are expecting a backlash on these brands anytime soon.

We live at a time when we are privileged to see so many amazing and creative social media campaigns and great content, so surely there is no need to capitalise on the sad passing of a global icon to promote your brand?  Keep the tributes, relevant, short and about the person who has passed and get creative with more appropriate content!