March 20, 2002
Religious leaders on Wearside have condemned plans to ‘deadvertise’ - placing adverts on new gravestones.
Multi-national video games company Acclaim Entertainment hopes to market its new PlayStation II game ‘Shadow Man: 2econd Coming’ on headstones across the country.
The company - whose Stockton-on-Tees branch developed the game - is inviting relations of the recently deceased to contact them.
They offer to subsidise funeral costs in return for a small advertisement on the headstone featuring the Shadow Man logo and the game's hero, undead demon hunter Mike LeRoi.
But the plan has outraged members of the local religious community.
Few takers
‘I am shocked,’ admitted the Reverend Joe Poulter, of St Bede's Church, Town End Farm, Sunderland. ‘I don't feel that what goes on a gravestone has to be particularly religious, but that does seem to be going too far.’
The Reverend Ken Smith, of Whitburn Parish Church, criticised the company for trying to make money out of mourning, but believed that they would find few takers.
‘It's free enterprise gone mad,’ he said. But the Reverend Poulter feared that the financial burden of funerals - which can run into thousands of pounds - would mean such adverts may soon appear.
Shaun White, Acclaim's Communications Manager, said: ‘The concept of what we're calling 'deadvertising' is entirely consistent with the theme of the game and provides us with a permanent presence for our advertising.’
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