(FORTUNE Magazine) – There are no second acts in American lives, only second lives in American ads: Ever more often the dead walk among us, Wearing Khakis, Just Doing It, generally Thinking Different. In the spirit of Apple's and Gap's serial grave robbing, Mercedes has further muddied the waters of the Styx with a spot contending its S-class auto is "a car" the way Ernest Hemingway was "a writer," Jackie Robinson "a ballplayer," and Laurence Olivier "an actor." In another, deceased artists work a Mercedes assembly line: Picasso tightens bolts, Warhol supervises, Dali is a welder. (In charge of, what, melting odometers?)

Such ads appeal by describing "something that's really unique or one of a kind by comparing it to one-of-a-kind objects or people," says Lee Garfinkel, chairman and chief creative officer of Mercedes' ad agency, Lowe & Partners/SM. These nonendorsement endorsements also let sellers take the high road by saluting our beloved dead while displaying their images just as actual endorsements do. And our beloved dead, bless 'em, stay beloved and dead--they don't land in detox or L.A. County Court. Hence, we've seen a kind of spokescorpse Dream Team emerge: For instance, Marilyn Monroe (whose luscious mole was recently redrawn as a Mercedes logo) has been linked with brands like so many Kennedy brothers. Not only does Picasso plug both Gap (as did Dali and Warhol) and Apple, but his cubist product placement "Bottle of Pernod and Glass" was used in a promotion for the aperitif more than 80 years later. And long after breaking baseball's color line, Robinson has crossed another barrier--the Great Divide--for Wheaties, Apple, Nike, McDonald's, and Coca-Cola.

So how can the aspiring pitch-zombie plan for a successful afterlife? Avoid posthumous controversy. as Garfinkel says, it creates "interference" in the message (think Jackie Robinson, not Ty Cobb). Judging from recent higher-profile campaigns, it helps to play jazz (Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong) or dance (Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire); artists should cultivate cuddliness and go light on the abstraction (don't expect to see Mark Rothko flacking Coke). Oh, and it doesn't hurt to die young: See Monroe, James Dean (Levi's, Gap), and Amelia Earhart (Gap and--what were they thinking?--TWA). Anyone can become immortal through their work. It takes real talent to become immortal through your pants.

--James Poniewozik