Fake Funeral Home Puts Up Clever Billboard to Curb Texting and Driving

The Montreal office of agency John St. has put up a clever billboard in hopes of putting a stop to drivers texting while behind the wheel.

The billboard simply reads “TEXT AND DRIVE” but underneath it is a logo for Wathan Funeral Home. The thing is, Wathan Funeral Home doesn’t exist and was created by Cieslok Media as part of the campaign. The idea, naturally, is to associate the act of texting and driving with ending up in a funeral home, as distracted motoring continues to plague roadways worldwide.

“People see and hear the words ‘Don’t text and drive’ almost every day, but the number of people doing it keeps going up and up,” says Mylene Savoie, managing director of John St. Montreal. “So we wanted to think of a different way of saying it that would make people think about the real consequences. Which is where ‘Text and drive’ came from.”

SEE ALSO: NHTSA is Trolling People Who Text and Drive on Twitter and It’s Great

Those that do a Google search for Wathan Funeral Home will find its website that has the following message:

“If you’re here, you’ve probably seen our ‘Text and Drive’ billboard. And if you have, you probably came to this website to tell us what horrible people we are for running an ad like that. And you’d be right.

It is a horrible thing for a funeral home to do. But we’re not a funeral home.

We’re just trying to get Canadians to stop texting and driving, which is projected to kill more people in Ontario this year than drinking and driving. That’s right. More. And while most people wouldn’t even think about drinking and driving, over half of Ontario drivers admit to reading texts while behind the wheel. That’s more than half of the drivers on the road today risking their lives, their passengers’ lives and the lives of their fellow motorists and pedestrians.

Which should make you even madder than our billboard did.”

Check out our News Section for more stories like this one