Controversial clothing designers “Red or Dead” have propelled the advertising industry into a new marketing age with a campaign to use real-life suicide ‘models’ as product placements.

The famous jeans company has agreed to pay the families of suicide victims up to $500 for each image of the corpse that is published in the media - on the web, TV or in newspapers – featuring their clothing.

For celebrity suicides, the company is willing to double its payouts.

Red or Dead first rose to prominence in the mid-90s when, in a radical advertising campaign for its clothing, it ran a series of posters depicting clearly staged teenage suicides.

Answering accusations that the company was employing inappropriate and mawkish methods for product placement, a company spokeswoman stated that the company was only taking the lead, to reflect similar developments across the advertising industry.

“Red or Dead have always been at the forefront of thought provoking, evocative advertising.” the spokeswoman said.

“Payment on targeted message output, which this campaign promotes, is the new direction for the advertising industry and celebrity placement and endorsement has always been a valuable asset”, she said.

“Red or Dead have traditionally been a niche fashion company. This campaign seeks to broaden our brand’s awareness by leveraging the media coverage of teenage and celebrity suicide.”

“Obviously we don’t wish the suicide rate to rise dramatically, but certainly an increase would directly benefit our campaign,” the spokeswoman concluded.

Red or Dead’s moves into viral product placement follows similar schemes by McDonalds and Malboro to promote their products.

In the USA, the hamburger giant has agreed to pay up to $5 each time one of their famous burgers is ‘name checked’ by a rapper on commercial radio across the nation.

Although the rappers will retain artistic control over the final use of promotional phrases, this deal has already lead to a big shake up in the rap music industry. Snoop Dogg’s “Gimme Big-Macs, Large Fries and Booty” earned the star around $5 million in the first week of its release.

This was followed up by Eminem’s “Maccas does it for me” and Ice Cube’s ballad-rap “Eat at McDonalds; its superior to the other hamburger restaurants” which reached number 3 in the Billboard chart in its first week.

In Australia, members of “The Wiggles” children’s entertainment group have recently signed a 5-year deal with Malboro cigarettes to light up on stage and urge children to do likewise. Each member of the madcap quartet will earn up to $1,000 every time they take a deep drag and sing “Smoke one of these kids, this will make your day.”

Malboro hopes the deal will increase their market penetration in the 8-14 age bracket by 25%.

Attacking this new wave of product endorsement, Dr Susan Linn, co-founder of US group Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood said "Even as food and cigarette companies pay lip service to the idea of responsible marketing, they increasingly turn to new and deceitful ways of targeting children. Red or Dead’s new campaign seeks to make suicide look cool.”