UPDATE:Whoops! No sooner did I hit the publish button did I discover that the Coal Cares campaign is an elaborate parody. But it seems real if you know the history of various industry campaigns, which is what the rest of my post is about. Lots of people are shaking their heads over this Coal Cares campaign. You have to wonder which marketing genius dreamed it up, and what Peabody was thinking when they bought it. What's next? Marlboro rolling out an ad campaign called, Tobacco Cares, with cartoons making oxygen tanks sexy for people who have emphysema? Still, there's something retro about this new Coal Cares gimmick that recall some industry classics from the Mad Men era (and some that predate it). Let's take a trip down memory lane... When it was fun to be sprayed with DDT: When Big Tobacco wooed the playground set.
And in case little junior wanted to enjoy a brewski with his ciggy:
But if the Flintstone crowd didn't catch on, a few years later this commercial might have gone over like a nice, cool breeze:
And if you managed to make it this far without getting hooked, surely the good doctor would convince you.
The good old days. When product poison could be sold with a straight face.
