Death Marketing

Marketers have not left any stone unturned in their quest to market. It is in fact surprising to find spirited efforts to market products like renaissance urn, x-ray friendly vessels, green burial sites and other death-related products. Marketing death related product may not be a great business idea afterall. Has anyone ever tried to market a person’s death itself? Yes someone has.

The great marketing idea came from an unexpected quarter. A Carnegie Mellon professor has added a new chapter in the book of marketing by marketing his own death. Randy Pausch’s ‘The Last Lecture ‘ is that piece of marketing. A dying man writing about living was a heady mix and many couldn’t resist that. The blogger himself is one such victim.

Raundy Pausch, was a Computer Science professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He is best known for his pioneering work in Virtual Reality. Sometimes in 2006 he was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. At the age of 47, he felt death has called upon him a bit too early. Still he realized that death gave him some breathing time to prepare for the inevitable.

Carnegie Mellon University has a tradition of asking any retiring or severing professor to deliver what is called the ‘Last Lecture’ (by the time Randy delivered the lecture, the series was renamed to ‘Journeys’). The title of lecture series unfortunately suited Randy literally. Interestingly he decided to surprise his eager audience by presenting himself in a very healthy shape. The last lecture was presented in September 2007 which he titled ‘Really achieving your childhood dreams’ and that was not at all about dying.

Randy delivering the Lecture

The presentation’s title swept most of the audience off their feet. From the word ‘go’ professor was in full throttle. There were no traces of self-denial, tears, pity and the likes. In fact he enthralled the audience by showing photographs of his new home and convertible car. Interestingly he put many members of his ‘healthy’ audience to shame by performing half-a-dozen quick push-ups. The professor listed some of his childhood dreams and showed his audience how he realized them. He moved on to describing how enabling others’ dreams was funnier than achieving one’s own dreams. In the third and the final part of the presentation Randy threw a few ideas about how to live.

The whole lecture was video graphed and found its way to Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo).The 76 minute video became an instant internet sensation with more than 1 million views within the first month. At the time of this post the video was viewed more than 12 million times. This man ceased the opportunity that death threw at him and converted into an awesome business proposition. He didn’t stop there. He went further to raise a nation’s attention towards pancreatic cancer. The disease is slowly becoming a serious threat in his country.

When he was diagnosed with terminal illness, he had three kids with the eldest son aged just seven. He was sure that his kids might not remember much of him when they grow up. So he wanted to leave something for his children. The lecture and the book are parts of that noble idea. To quote Randy, ‘ I was trying to put myself in a bottle that would one day wash up on the beach for my children’.

Randy, his wife Jai and their
three kids

The book as such is an engrossing read. Randy not just speaks about his own personal childhood dreams, he splashes lots of insights and lessons that he learned in areas as diverse as football, education, virtual reality programming and relationship management. One of the attractive features of the book is that the author has organized the text as a series of small crisp chapters. Randy shares many of his life’s experiences in a ‘thought for the day’ kind of one-liners. Among many interesting one-liners, my favourite is “Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted".

Randy lost his battle against pancreatic cancer on July 25 2008. He shot to international fame with his last lecture. He touched the lives of millions with his ever-living words. Randy’s book is acclaimed as one of the best motivational books to be ever published. One should read the book to understand its magic.