The Lindner calendar's artwork for July 2013 Courtesy of Lindner

Lindner, one of Poland’s largest coffin makers, has produced a calendar for 2013 which portrays naked and scantily clad models posing next to and on top of the company’s products.

Lindner’s head salesperson Tomasz Kilarski said the calendar is part of a campaign to promote the company abroad.

“Coffin producers in Poland normally find it hard to sell beyond their immediate region [within Poland],” Mr Kilarski said. “We actually managed to spread out internationally, and our coffins are bought by funeral homes in France, Germany and other places,” he added.

Lindner functions as a B2B business, selling caskets in bulk mainly to funeral homes, which later sell the coffins to clients. Mr Kilarski said funeral home owners are usually very happy when they receive Lindner’s calendar.

Andrzej Multanowski, owner of PRS, a PR and marketing agency, said that although this kind of marketing is “primitive,” it achieves its purpose of making Lindner stand out from the crowd.

“You have to consider who their target client is, and that is certainly not an individual client, but a funeral home,” Mr Multanowski said. “I think the calendar does its job in terms of making the company stand out to funeral home owners.”

Mr Multanowski added that the Polish advertising market has recently been going back to the past, when nudity was used to promote products.

“The current market situation is tough, there is a lot of competition, so companies reach for the easiest solution to attract attention, and we all know sex sells,” he said.