London, Nov 29: Saucy calendars have long been a staple marketing ploy for starlets and university sports teams.
But a coffin firm has also latched on to the mantra ’sex sells’ and released a 2014 calendar featuring voluptuous, scantily-clad models draped suggestively over its wares, report RocketNews24.
You can buy your own copy from Polish coffin makers Lindner for £30. Quite why you’d want one on your wall is another matter.
The Polish Lindner Calendar advertises the company’s coffins with the aid of scantily-clad ladies like Miss December (left) and Miss February 2010 (right)
However, the successful company now churns out 11,000 caskets a month - which may be down to their controversial marketing strategy.
Last year, the Catholic church in Poland condemned Lindner’s calendar saying human death should be respected and not mixed with sex, but that hasn’t deterred the firm from releasing a fifth installment of their provocative adverts.
The church said the calendars were ’inappropriate’ but Zbigniew Lindner, the firm’s owner, defended them.
’My son had the idea of creating the company’s calendar so that we could show something half-serious, colorful, beautiful; the beauty of Polish girls and the beauty of our coffins,’ he said.
’So much work goes into our coffins that are only seen for a few moments at the funeral. We wanted to show that a coffin shouldn’t be a sacred object - it’s furniture, it’s the last bed you’ll ever sleep in. It isn’t a religious symbol. Its a product. Why are people afraid of coffins and not of business suits, cosmetics or jewelry?’
Lindner, the largest producer of coffins in Poland, instigated this bold marketing stunt in 2010 in attempt to lighten up the ’serious attitude’ towards caskets while showcasing their wood craft.
The coffin-making firm donates 100 per cent sales revenue from their racy calendars to charity and give away a free coffin-shaped pendant with each purchase.
Miss April 2010 (left) a camouflaged hunter, relaxes on a coffin as angry bride Miss January (right) tries to crack open a casket
A 1920s widow dressed in an ill-fitting fisherman’s vest attends a funeral
Gun-toting Miss June 2010 leans against a coffin in a derelict building (left) as a displeased Miss August 2010 strikes a pose with scythe by a hay bale (right)
Miss March 2011 was part of a vintage vixen, film noir-inspired calendar for the casket firm
Miss March 2010 by a rock pool illuminated by tea lights (left) and Miss July 2010, is a cowgirl clutching a pitchfork (right)
The fifth edition of the calendar for 2014 aims to express ’perfect harmony between Lindner coffins and natural wood, blue sea, red flowers, green fields and beauty of the female body’