Samsung and Cheil Worldwide launch Seoul bridge ‘Image Zone’ to deter suicides

It’s funny isn’t it, the more companies trumpet their efforts to ‘do good’ the more trouble (some of them) find themselves in, for rather more mundane issues like avoiding taxes.

Anyway, here’s another foray into do-good land, this time from Samsung (which as far as we know hasn’t been pilloried for avoiding taxes, although many of its tech rivals have).

This isn’t actually the tech bit of Samsung but its life insurance arm (Samsung does pretty well everything in South Korea including partnering with Tesco). The life insurance connection becomes obvious.

In the capital Seoul there’s a certain Mapo Bridge which, unfortunately is popular with suicides. So Samsung and agency Cheil Worldwide have devised a campaign that displays cheery images and messages on the bridge itself to dissuade would-be jumpers. This ‘Image Zone’ shows photographs of smiling babies, couples and grandparents.

There’s also a brass statue of two friends called ‘Just Once Again’ depicting one friend consoling the other (something lost in translation here, perhaps).

Anyway it’s quite a good idea. Can’t help thinking that bigger barriers might help too though.