WHO: Best Buy
WHAT: Hours after actor Heath Ledger’s death, a Best Buy store already had a table set up with his DVDs on sale, urging customers to “remember a great actor through his great performances.”
THE QUOTE: “Please be certain Best Buy takes matters of this nature very seriously. In reviewing your concerns with the management team at our Mission Valley store, they have concluded that the display was inappropriate in light of Mr. Ledger’s recent passing and have removed it from the sales floor.”
(Thanks to Samuel!)
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@Topcat:
“Best Buy has all the right in the world to respond to customer demand…” No argument there.
“…and there always will be instantaneous demand whenever an artist dies…” No argument there.
“…and gather them for easier purchase… There is no problem whatsoever with what they are doing here.” Apparently, the market disagreed with you. Buyers complained, and the seller stopped the behavior.
The market has made its decision. You’re going against the market. You’re not arguing AGAINST capitalism, are you?
Again, it goes back to corporate ethics. Read my previous two questions. “Is this something we want to regularly do?” “Is this something that would shed bad light on the company if publicized?”
Even if you don’t believe in corporate ethics, while it is purely capitalistic behavior you’re talking about, such behavior also has a negative financial impact on the company that engages in such behavior.
By chasing dollars and engaging in behaviors to bring in more money, you’re actually LOSING money in the process. Amazing how ethics works in the big picture.
@vladthepaler: It’s inappropriate to directly try to make a profit on someone’s death. It will happen naturally enough without being crude about it.
DISCLAIMER: Sarcasm involved. “It’s capitalism at its finest! If anything, Circuit City should have a “NOT AS CRASS AS BEST BUY WEEKEND SALE” and have Heath Ledger films marked up in price.” Someone has and someone always will try to benefit over a disaster or tragedy, and Best Buy is the epitome of such behavior.
@vladthepaler:
Oh yes. That’s why stores should pull his DVD’s from the shelves for the usual waiting period. TV stations should not broadcast his movies either; to do so would be a grave insult.
I don’t understand all this. The actor was probably very proud of his life’s work. If the fact that his death is in the news and as a result people have increased interest in seeing some of his films they haven’t seen before, why is that so terrible?
this arguement reminds me of those ‘support our troops’ magnets.
@ClayS: Incorrect. That would be CENSORING the actor’s work because he died. Just the opposite. That would also be bad corporate ethics. This isn’t a balls-to-the-walls one way or another choice. How about some moderate dignity and respect? That’s all that people are asking for. Is it too tough to imagine?
As I explained in the other topic, Heath Ledger’s movies are found in nearly every category of the DVD section.
Brokeback Mountain? Drama
10 Things I Hate About You? Comedy
Knight’s Tale? Action
Bringing them all together in one display simplifies the shopping experience for both the customer and the employees. From a marketing standpoint, it’s no different that featuring cranberry sauce, yams, and stuffing on an supermarket end-cap for Thanksgiving.
Best Buy’s job isn’t to honor a person’s memory; It’s to sell crap.
@ClayS: It’s not terrible if people have a sudden increased interest in his life’s work. It IS terrible that rather than having some respect for the recently deceased and his family, they’re broadcasting his death for profitibility in a way that questions the ethics of an already piss-poor company.
It’s one thing to put up a sign or message that says, “Our condolences to Heath Ledger’s family”, and quite another that says, “HUZZAH! HEATH IS DEAD! BUYZ OUR MOVIEZZZZ!!”
u.u
apparently even best buy’s higher up’s felt it was a tasteless display, and removed it. i don’t think they felt they would lose any money by placing them in their proper space. if they were really profiting off of that kind of method, they would have told the complainers to get bent. the idea that a movie would sell more, be worth more, or become more rare simply because a main actor in the movie dies just does not make any since to me.
@vliam: No, Best Buy’s job isn’t to sell crap. It is to bring a good return to the shareholders. Now, let’s discuss the scenario all the complainers are asking for:
BEST BUY INSTITUTES “SHRINE POLICY” FOR ANY DEAD ACTOR/MUSICIAN
From now on, when a notable person dies, and their likeness is contained on media that Best Buy sells, Best Buy will immediately set up a shrine to that person, so that all of their media is available in a small area.
Actually, myself, I think it’d be cool. But it would also be bad corporate ethics. Seriously, do any of you people have any involvement in corporate ethics? At least any training?
So, they’ve managed to give themselves a temporary bump in the sales of whoever died that day or week. Great.
But now, they’ve got a new problem. They’ve alienated more customers, and tarnished their reputation and the goodwill of their brand. They’re seen, by some, as a company waiting for the next person to die so that they can turn a quick buck.
Hey, nothing in capitalism says you can’t do that. But Best Buy’s problem would be that, in terms of raw capitalism, it is self defeating. Unless they manage to change US culture, they’re going to have a backlash. And Best Buy would rightly make the calculation that the cost of a backlash would exceed the excess profits that they would make through their temporary death promotions.
Because Best Buy has an obligation to give a good return to the shareholders (aside from any corporate ethics obligation), they’re going to stop such a behavior. Again, capitalism.
Doing dead artists promotions is not a positive experience in capitalism for large companies. Joe at the flea market? Sure.
Regardless of if you think it is silly or not, the backlash that is out there makes such a decision unprofitable and unethical for a large company.
And, besides, we all know that the whole idea likely came some junior assistant Best Buy store manager who’s looking to impress his boss.
FAIL. That’s why he’s a junior assistant store manager.
The pop culture disadvantaged have to say: Heath who?
@KJones: I take it you’re not a fan of Tupac’s Don Killuminati album then.
It hit the shelves two months after his murder.
It’s sold 4.2 million copies since release.
I’m no fan of Best Buy at all, and I’d gladly be the first to condemn them. But what I’m learning is that there are quite a range of opinions on whether their display was tasteful or not. Personally, I don’t see a problem with it. Some of the profit from any DVD sales will go to his daughter.
It is not like they raised their prices on Heath Ledge products. That would surely be profiteering on his death. No doubt, if you go on eBay today, you will see his autographs fetching much higher prices than prior to his death. Is that ok?
@mantari: Actually, I have quite an interest in corporate ethics.
I think that you are greatly overestimating consumer reaction.
Next year will mark the twentieth anniversary of the Exxon Valdez spill and the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Bhopal disaster.
Both Exxon and Dow, the parent company of Union Carbide, seem to be doing quite well despite the fact that neither of them have ever really fixed the damage that they created.
Yeah, that display was a little tacky, but anyone who claims to be offended by this is just pretending to be offended because they like being able to go into outrage mode over nothing.
Did you know Heath Ledger personally? Do you have any personal interest in this? If you went to a garage sale and someone had the same display up, would you still be offended, or is it because it is Best Buy? I hate, despise, loathe BB by the way, but this incident does not contain any of the following:
1) deceiving customers or misrepresenting their products
2) ripping them off, gouging, etc (they aren’t suddenly trying to charge double for the movies now)
3) giving bad customer service
4) selling a dangerous, faulty, or useless product
5) colluding with other businesses or government to artificially inflate prices or fail to provide service
So what’s your problem? Oh, you’re such a close friend to the Ledger family that you can’t bear to know that some Best Buy manager 2,000 miles away made a mildly insensitive-to-the-memory-of sign because people kept asking for Heath Ledger’s movies?
Your indignation has received the following grade: FAIL. Please apply for retraining.
I used to work at a video store and we had a small section dedicated to the recently deceased. It wasn’t anything intentionally crass, it was intended to highlight that person’s career in film.
It was also a very popular section.
This does seem reasonable. I mean, I agree with the people above that if Best Buy didn’t have the DVDs there ready, everyone would be upset too. Everyone will have a different reaction. Best Buy can’t win either way.
@shan6: Actually, Amazon did create a special section.
I don’t understand why it’s sick and twisted for people to want to buy his movies now. Numerous people have said it is but no one has explained why.
@vliam:
You’re right, I am no fan of Kaput’s…sorry, Tupac’s careening…uh, “career”.
If the album by Kap…Tupac you mentioned was a planned album release, like the new Batman movie with Heath Ledger, then it’s a different matter and could not be considered profiteering any more than any other album. “Batman” will likely come out on the same time schedule before and after word of Ledger’s death. I’m just glad nobody pulled something this disgusting when Spalding Gray committed suicide.
Conversely, when writers die, there is a run on books by the authors. Maybe they should be held to a different standard since writers intend for their work to outlive them. Some people aren’t aware of certain writers until they die since the writer wasn’t as prominent at the time, but it’s also a good guage of how influential and important a writer is. When Kurt Vonnegut Jr. died, his books sold more within a month of his death than they had in years and outsold other prominent authors by 10:1 after their demises in the past few years.
Dont be surprised, Best Buy is a known slime bag
@snoop-blog: No they probably didn’t care. They are damage controlling, no more no less.
Some of you haven’t worked in retail I see. This is more-than-very common – it’s just plain what retailers do when there’s a death, and they do it immediately. Take the movies/books/etc they were in/wrote and make a display. The death is in the news and people will want the products. I didn’t hear anyone ranting about how “tasteless” my store’s Richard Pryor display was when he died. Some people just happened to b**** about it this time beause people in the US have become overly sensitive about death and Best Buy had to kiss and make up for what is typical in the industry.
This is stupid stupid stupid and I see nothing wrong with the sign.
@swalve: duh! so they agreed that it was “causing damage” by your statement. same thing i just said just worded differently.
@fearuncertaintydoubt: Congratulations on developing your list of corporate ethics violations! I’m sure that you’ve list, while only containing five items, will serve as a shining beacon for decades to come! Can you believe that these companies actually have a need to hire an ethics and a public relations department?
Come to think of it, what is wrong with this? This guy was an actor, so in his death his movies are put on display. It shows how talented he was that people are recognizing his death and celebrating what he did in life.
“Oh but they’re making money off of his death!”
It’s a store, that’s what they do: make money. Did you expect them to take all his movies off the shelves and store them in a back room until the news blew over?
We now have such a prejudice against retail that instead of seeing a display like this in Best Buy and going “Oh yeah, he was a great actor, it’s good to be able to see what he was in,” we go “What a disgrace to see his movies put out for sale when he just died! And what a tasteless sign to say…that he had great performances!”
You see evil where you want to see it. Wake up.
You stay classy, San Diego.
@Balisong: i think it would be different if he had died at old age from natural causes, but that is just it, we don’t know yet. i’m just sayin, at least wait for the stinkin autopsy.
if the same display was done for Rodney Dangerfield, after his death, i would surely think of it differently than an un-timely death of a young actor. but personally i wouldn’t give enough care to complain about it.
@snoop-blog: I don’t agree. Dead is dead – why does it matter how he died? We now have to be more respectful of people that overdose on drugs than of people that died of old age? And Best Buy isn’t going to hire people to do nothing but follow death news and figure out when is the best time to display movies.
i don’t even know this guy, i don’t hit the movies, but i don’t see where his demise is worth 10 min of lead story on wabc 5 oclock news…using 3 different reporters and the anchors….especially when one of the other stories was a kid getting shot in school, a big fire and a serious accident…..i’m not trying to belittle this guys passing, but what are the priorities??????and at the time of the newscast they had very little info…..
Mission Valley yeah? I could walk over and check to see if it’s still around… but the only reason I go in that Best Buy is to play Guitar Hero, and I forgot my contact lens eye drops (a Guitar Hero necessity apparently).
The people that are saying it isn’t a big deal do not understand how Best Buy works. They tried to capitalize on the death of Heath Ledger and make some extra cash. They aren’t there to make a memorial to Heath Ledger, they just want the money. I work at Best Buy and I know how they work. They truly don’t care about anything except what can help them make budget for the day.
Maybe if they cleaned up the sign a bit it wouldn’t be so offensive but they typed that up in 5 minutes in a word document and stuck in on a table. This tells me that they were trying to capitalize on Heath Ledgers death as soon as possible.
Ok gang, repeat after me….I will never ever never never ever ever ever give Best Buy a $ of mine….so help me G_D
@public enemy #1: “A lot of employees felt they were capitilizing on the tragedy, but people wanted information and were tuning in to that type of programming for one reason or another.”
That’s always a difficulty in news media. It’s just a really fine line to walk between legitimately covering tragedies and sensationalizing them. I wrote the obituary beat for a college paper and the entire experience was horrific, trying to walk that line between legit coverage and sensationalism, and coverage and intrusion (with the family/friends of people who’d died too young).
If someone is interested in buying Heath Ledger’s movies, he/she will know where to find the movies unless they’re mentally retarded.
However, what disgusts me even more than the weirdos interested in purchasing dvds of someone who recently died instead of while they were alive is … people who can’t seem to find the initial action of that BBuy store as unethical.
The lack of morals shown by these commentators shows a disturbing shift in ethics in our nation. The only time some people understand social respect is when tragedy strikes their own families.
@ninjatales: Yes, because none of us has ever experienced the deaths of several family members, and therefore our ethics are deplorable.
This thread needs less O’Reilly BS.
This wording of the sign was poor, and done without effort, but I have a few points to make.
1. It looks like it was done in one store, and not as a directive from corporate, so I won’t hold BB accountable for one store level decision that was in bad taste.
2. I remember when Douglas Adams died, he was my favorite author for most of my life. After I heard the news, I went to my bookshelf and reread many of his books. Its like going to any funeral, people will tell stories about the deceaced in rememberance, and people wanting to buy an artists works after they died is very similar in my mind.
3. How many Heath Ledger movies can you name? IMDB lists 21 released that he is in. So while I might go to BB and find “A knights Tale”, I may have forgotten his role in “The Patriot” So it is a service many costomers would look for, since not many BB employees will know every title the actor was in.
4. I’m not going to feel any guilt when I put my money down to see him “The Dark Knight” (was already planning on seeing it), and the theater chains are not going to feel guilty that some people are going to buy tickets to see his last film that might not otherwise see the movie in theaters.