Dead Celebrities Promoting Products From the Grave: Too Creepy?

People are questioning the propriety of a new TV and Internet ad that resurrects the voice and image of murdered Beatle John Lennon to promote the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Foundation, which supplies durable, low-cost laptop computers to underprivileged children in foreign countries. The ad digitally recreates Lennon's voice, with his bespectacled face appearing to mouth the words, "Imagine every child, no matter where in the world they were, could access a universe of knowledge. They would have a chance to learn, to dream, to achieve anything they want. I tried to do it through my music, but now you can do it in a very different way. You can give a child a laptop, and more than imagine, you can change the world." Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, gave permission to use her husband's image free of charge, and the ad was created pro-bono, but still people are finding the idea of manipulating dead celebrities to promote products "creepy" and unsettling. A comment in a Laptop Magazine blog laid out a common opinion of such ads: "What's next? Elvis for peace in Darfur? John Wayne would probably have gotten behind AIDS education and prevention measures ... Where does it end? Why do we need dead people to help us envision a better future? I suppose there's nobody alive that would agree to this? Sad times."