Every so often a headline comes along that just completely kills it—the kind of headline you remember 40 years later, the kind that goes something like, oh, I don't know, "Singapore speech academy apologizes for sending men dressed as clowns to schools and asking kids to follow them:"

People dressed as clowns were seen loitering around primary schools in Singapore and asking children to 'follow them' as part of a failed marketing stunt which sparked panic among parents.

One man wearing clown makeup and a hat was spotted staring at school children outside a number of schools, sparking a flurry of messages between worried parents.

The clowns were part of a bizarre marketing stunt by educational consultant Speech Academy Asia to promote their courses. The company has since apologised to parents for the 'cause of concern over the safety of your children'.

Yeah... um ,an apology really isn't sufficient here. This academy should be releasing a full blow-by-blow report on what exactly led them to believe this was anything even remotely resembling a good idea.

Did a committee sit around brainstorming ways to get more kids to sign up, and one of them hit on "send creepy clowns to try and persuade children to follow them," and the rest of the team was like, "Yes, yes, let's do that!"

You just have to wonder who really pulled the trigger on this one, and why. Was it actually some sort of meta-promotional campaign, meant to generate publicity by the sheer awfulness of it all? If so, I guess it worked.

Anyway, point being, clowns are really terrifying and their use as a marketing tool should be banned by the United Nations.