Tabloid Tale Enrages MMC, Marsh

A New York tabloid's claim that images of the World Trade Center were used to further a Marsh brokerage advertising campaign has prompted outrage at the firm.

Marsh and its parent Marsh & McLennan Companies, which lost 355 employees when the twin towers collapsed, was the target of a story in the New York Post.

On Monday, the publication ran an article quoting family members who lost loved ones in the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attack on the WTC, saying they believed the firm was using images of the towers in its advertising.

MMC said it was "outraged that the New York Post would run a story designed to resurrect the pain and anguish experienced by MMC colleagues and, in particular, the families of those colleagues who perished."

The ads are a series of portrait photographs of models in close-up with the tag line: "There's Another Side of Risk." Reflected in the eyes of the models are two vertical strips of light reflecting two five-foot-high light stanchions used in the shots. The photos were taken by Martin Schoeller, a world-renowned photographer.

The lighting technique is a signature of Mr. Schoeller's work, noted Marsh, which included a link on its Web site to other portraits taken by the photographer with a similar effect.

The advertisements, part of a branding campaign launched by MMC in April, appear on posters in subways and buses. The aim of the campaign, by MMC's insurance brokerage firm Marsh, is to get clients to think about risk as an opportunity instead of a liability, the firm said.

"The mere suggestion that MMC would include, suggest or disregard 9/11 imagery in its ad campaign is not only wildly wrong but cruel and despicable," MMC said in a statement. "Indeed, it is the Post's own bizarre theory that the photographs are in some way connected to the tragedy of 9/11."

The Post's story quotes two people who lost loved ones in the WTC. They suggest that MMC purposefully created the images to evoke the towers and criticize the company for doing so.