Detestable Collectibles
As part of its collection, the Forbes Gallery in New York City displays a bar of Titanic soap, which, according to the box copy, is “Guaranteed to sink!’ It’s doubtful too many visitors take umbrage with this product, although I can’t imagine the descendents of John Jacob Astor IV are in a rush to lather up with it.
The passage of time allows certain liberties with a tragedy. The Titanic went down in 1912, so most of the painful wounds the disaster created probably have healed. But the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks are very much in recent memory. Furthermore, while the Pentagon has been repaired, development at the World Trade Center site is bogged down. Both attack sites are tragic: For New Yorkers, ground zero is galling in an ongoing way.
This is why copy for anything commemorating the destruction should be carefully considered. Is it? Often, no. Take the slipshod descriptions Flagsoncars.com features on a variety of 9/11-commemorative products. The company’s offerings are printed with a flag motif or a New York City skyline (circa Sept. 10, 2001) or both. In what little body copy there is, every time an item description falls short, someone has dropped a variation of the sentence “09-11-01 not to be forgotten.” into the copy.
This little phrase adds nothing to the sales effort – and indeed, implies that the way 9/11 will be remembered is by making a purchase from Flagsoncars.com. Even without spending $39.95 on the laser crystal paperweight, not too many folks are likely to forget 9/11. Don’t tell me this will help me remember the date – tell me part of the proceeds will go to firefighter widows.
In addition to the pins and flags, the also site offers a 9-11 Hair Scrunchy, which features stars and stripes as well as the intact NYC skyline. This is the only product Flagsoncars.com felt the need to assert was “tastefully printed” on 100% polyester fabric. It’s unclear if this is a reflection on the scrunchy, or on every other product the site sells, which assumedly are not “tastefully printed,” whatever that means.
Here’s something else to consider: If a marketer is repurposing pre-9/11 merchandise as commemorative, don’t make that obvious in the copy. The MIA 2000 Jubilee Collection featured a glass World Trade Center Christmas ornament. As the copy on NYCWebStore.com says, “these Twin Towers ornaments hold new meaning to many.” Yeah, and that new meaning is “Hey, Joey, looks like we don’t have to trash the overrun after all.”
The glass ornaments are another instance where someone needed to be a bit more sensitive to the subject at hand. The MIA in “MIA 2000 Jubilee Collection” refers to the artist (Mia) who created the piece, but given the anguished “have you seen my spouse/parent/child/friend” signs that covered lower Manhattan after Sept. 11, it could well be mistaken for the phrase missing in action. On this particular item, who “Mia” was should have been made clear up front – and as a general rule, copy pertaining to the sale of sensitive items needs to be vetted for unintentional meanings.
The final bit of egregious copy comes from the Drue Sanders Custom Jewelers Web site. It touts a pin in the shape of an inverted pentagon with an American flag and the Twin Towers embossed into it. The copy starts out “It is the season of color – the colors are red, white and blue…. Now, there are two more colors – sterling silver and 14k gold. Drue Sanders Custom Jewelers is proud to announce the creation of a commemorative pin…”
Thank you, Drue Sanders Custom Jewelers, for pointing out that nothing says tragedy and patriotism like gold and silver. Never mind the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial or any of the national archives. Real Americans should drop everything and make a pilgrimage to the only truly American institution: Fort Knox.
