by Structured Settlement Watchdog®
In his defense for his company’s macabre marketing campaign which I related on April 22, 2015, Tim Aikman of Aikman Structured Finance, LLC emailed me at 950pm Sunday night and says his ” latest marketing campaign from Aikman Structured Finance, LLC was designed to remind Structured Settlements Industry Professionals of the need to protect their clients from those who bully annuitants into selling with no thought of the lives they are destroying. Aikman likens them to Zombies (as seen daily in popular culture). In fact, the marketing directly referenced these Mindless Predators as ‘Zombie Companies”.
Whatever good Tim Aikman does has been temporarily undermined by his company’s questionable marketing campaign that is labeled squishy and inhuman. More like inhumane. what Aikman did to me.
Tim admitted in a writing that on March 25, 2015 he sent to me a zombie toy with “rotting flesh” . To wit, in a pdf of a piece that he threatened to post on the Internet, he says that “included in the (Aikman) marketing package sent out across the Country was a postcard, a ‘Say No to Zombie Companies’ sticker, and an educational toy used to teach anatomy to Middle School Students in a ‘fun’ and engaging way. Last time I checked there are no middle school students among “structured settlements industry professionals”.
Tim Aikman says, “see their website for details: http://www.smartlabtoys.com/squishy-zombie.html ” His “children love it” he beams proudly. Do you really think they’d be so ghoulishly inclined if was their Mommy who had just passed and they saw her decomposing corpse?
Anyone who has studied decomposition understands what happens when someone dies. I sent Tim the Wikipedia reference tonight to remind him. Clicking on the link in the pdf he threatens to post, reveals that you can “examine rotting flesh”. The toy itself arrived in a large FEDEX box and the way it was packaged it is the first thing that comes out of the box.
I have no need to defend myself for the post on April 22, 2015, about what is, in my opinion, an ill advised marketing campaign by Aikman Structured Finance LLC.
If in fact the Aikman package had not coincided with my Mom’s passing I’d be of the same opinion about the ill-advised marketing campaign. It’s not the first time that a company has tried a marketing approach that has backfired. [ See 6 Ill-Advised Marketing Campaigns That Backfired Hilariously by JF Sargent Cracked Magazine December 5, 2012]
By the time I got Aikman Structured Finance, LLC’s rotting flesh zombie toy from the ill advised market campaign, I had already received condolence calls, cards and even a shiva platter from his competitors, people with basic human decency for someone who is grieving. One even attended my mother’s funeral on March 22, 2015.
After reading my April 22, 2015 post, Tim Aikman incredibly sent me a follow up “Zombie’ marketing piece that arrived in Saturday’s mail. In return I sent him a cease and desist and asked him to simply stop sending the zombie stuff and to remove my contact information from his database.
Aikman’s response after he admitted that he too happened upon a deceased parent “I have never felt the need to exploit this (a parent’s death) or misrepresent anything to anyone for personal gain”.
I have never used Tim Aikman. I have no reference point or comment for how he deals with clients. I clearly have a problem with his company’s marketing campaign. End of story.