Nothing Says "Taste" Like Dead Guy Chocolate

We're all familiar with creepy Orville Redenbacher being resurrected to shill again for his popcorn, and Kurt Cobain selling Doc Martens from heaven. Here's another cheap stoop at a dead legend on the part of Hershey's.


Saw this item in the checkout lane tonight at the grocery store and had to snap it up, seeing as it is a "collector edition" chocolate bar. (DOH! I cheapened my investment by opening the package. Crap! Guess I'd better go buy another and keep it in the freezer so I can sell it on eBay in 19 years, when it'll be worth $1.45.)

Look at that classy embossed chocolate likeness of Dale Earnhardt, NASCAR legend. That is freakin' awesome. I'll bet he tastes so good. This is only the second in the series of three collector's chocolate bars from Hershey's. Keeping my eyes open for numbers one and three.

Previously in shameless dead marketing

Previously in NASCAR

Our Dead Spokesmodel

Hey, TrimSpa®!

Anna Nicole Smith is still prominently featured on your in-store displays, curiously and comically positioned between the Whitman's Samplers and the pregnancy tests.

And your website is still a grim, black funeral for Ms. Smith. Some sort of pretend tribute on your part as you play the concerned friend?

Classy. She's been dead for over a month. Knock it off. Did her contract with you state that this poor bimbo would shill for your product even from the grave?

Man, you guys are serious ghouls. And you're seriously sucking at reputation management. This is becoming a textbook example of how not to handle a brand crisis.

(Image captured on Wednesday, March 14, 2007 at a Florida CVS store.)