Most of the time in advertising, lots of attention is a good thing. But a funeral company in London is getting attention for all the wrong reasons.

The company, called Beyond, offers funeral price comparisons – a great service for those who are faced with exorbitant interment and other death-related costs after the death of a loved one. However, their method of advertising the service is not the most tasteful.

One ad appears to be a vacation ad at first glance, but then on closer examination, the viewer realizes that the “surfboards” the happy beachgoers are carrying are actually coffins. Another looks like an ad for regular cold medicine asking, “Headaches? Aches and pains? Sore throat?” but then says, “better write your will then.” One even looks like a woman speaking to a wedding coordinator, but in the background looms a bright pink coffin.

The ads were rejected by Transport for London, but are running on billboards around the city. And people aren’t happy about it – on social media, they’ve been called “shocking,” “vile,” “insensitive,” and “tasteless.”

When asked to comment about the ads, Beyond’s co-founder, Ian Strang showed no regrets:

In the U.K. we are not comfortable talking about or engaging with death, and it’s not healthy, and something we want to meet head on.  Our reluctance to talk about death is the reason funeral costs continue to spiral and why you pay far too much for writing a will or settling an estate. That’s what we seek to change.

We’re stripping away the emperor’s clothes, the over-reverence assigned to what is, after all, an inevitable conclusion, an inescapable purchase — using humor.

We’re turning up the volume to 10 in the hope it paves the way for everyone else to at least make it to five — planting a flag and saying, ‘Here’s permission to talk about death.’

Talking about death does make people uncomfortable, but treating it lightly isn’t the best solution. It’s a subject that needs to be addressed with empathy and care. As marketers, we must take heed of Beyond’s mistakes, and, unlike Strang, be willing to admit when we’ve made a mistake. Otherwise, customers will believe that you don’t care about them, and will take their business elsewhere.