81
Tl
Thallium
(MOSTLY)
USELESS▶WHAT’S IT LOOK LIKE?
Dull and blue-gray, thallium is so quick
to tarnish in air that it must be pre-
served in oil, and so soft it can be cut
with a sharp fingernail.
▶WHY’S IT (MOSTLY)USELESS?
Toxicity. Thallium was a popular rat
poison and insecticide ingredient
until 1972, when the U.S. govern-
ment banned its commercial use inrodenticides; other countries followed
suit. Thallium is so toxic it can work its
way into the body through skin—a prop-
erty that (spoiler alert!) figures into
Agatha Christie’s The Pale Horse.
▶ WHAT’S IT USED FOR?
Combined with sulfur, it enhances
conductivity in products like photore-
active sensors. Combined with oxygen,
it enhances refractivity in the glass in
digital camera lenses and fiber-optic
cables. In cardiac stress tests, a small
shot of radioactive Tl-201 lights up
heart tissue under a gamma camera.
(Until alternatives emerge, thallium is
perhaps more fairly described as prob-
lematically useful.)
▶CAN I GET SOME?
Probably. Fewer than 8,000 kilograms
of the metal are produced each year,
but global coal reserves alone contain
an estimated 630 million kilograms.
Nova Elements sells small nuggets in
an argon-filled capsule for €49.90
($55.40). Alas, $5 jars of thallium-
infused Koremlu crème, which in the
1930s promised to remove superflu-
ous body hair with just a daub, are no
longer available. A chief symptom of
thallium poisoning, notcoincidentally,
is hair loss.74
THALLIUM: SPL/SCIENCE SOURCE. LEAD: JACANA/SCIENCE SOURCE. BISMUTH: BIOPHOTO/SCIENCE SOURCE. POLONIUM: ASTRID & HANNS-FRIEDER MICHLER/SCIENCE SOURCE.ASTATINE, FROM TOP: COURTESY U.S. DOE, DIRK WIERSMA/SCIENCE SOURCE. RADON: SCIENCE SOURCE (2). FRANCIUM: MICHAEL KOSSING/FRPNC COLLABORATIONWhat would you need to
know before taking on lead
as a client?
Are you trying to educate
people? Or is some lead mag-
nate just trying to clear out a
warehouse of the stuff?
Let’s start with a brand
refresh and let the sales
follow from there.
In that case, we would want
a forward-looking approach.
“Lead Is Life.” “Lead With
Lead.” “Lead: Try Not to Think
About It Too Much.”
The second one might be
tough to understand
in print.
Maybe it’s as sim-
ple as an accent mark
over the “e” or “a” so
we get a different pro-
nunciation to make it
forward-looking.
Walk us through
how you’d pull off
“Lead Is Life.”
Lead protects the human
body—it protects the geni-
tals of human beings! If you
look at it that way, maybe lead
creates life.
There is a lot that’s posi-
tive about lead. It’s cheap
and malleable and tough to
corrode. Did you know that
the universe is always cre-
ating more lead?
I didn’t know that. It’s
not going away, so maybe we
shouldn’t ignore it.
It also has the highest
atomic number of any sta-
ble element. That’s what
makes it such a great
shield against radiation.
Yeah! It’s got a high score,
it’s got a high number, but it’s
just on the edge of being
superdangerous. A maximum-
strength Tylenol kind of vibe.
There are plenty of exam-
ples of problematic
products in the history
of advertising—such as
cigarettes. What’s thedownside of acknowledg-
ing the dark side of lead
even more overtly?
Bad PR in the ad industry.
But isn’t the ultimate chal-
lenge for an agency to
persuade people to buy
something that’s not good
for them?
To sell the unsellable? It
feels like a slimy, old-fashioned
way to do it, to me. Marlboro
Man and [Joe] Camel are weird
pieces of pop culture that
wouldn’t have existed if people
didn’t put their morals aside.Are you saying the adver-
tising industry has
changed?
There’s been change on
both ends; public knowledge
has also changed. (Pauses.)
With information being so read-
ily accessible, people are going
to know it’s bad for you. So
why hide it? Maybe we embrace
it. People do have a kind of
doomsday headspace right now.
Maybe embracing something
that laughs in the face of that
could be the way to go? People
are into things that are bad for
them. “Lead: Expose Yourself.”
Or “Lead: Bad to the Bone.” Or
“Lead: Hurts So Good.”
Are we talking about award-
winning advertising here?
Right now the awards
industry is pretty hot on
work that takes things to an
edgy place and makes people
uncomfortable.
Promising. So would you
take on lead as a client?
After reviewing the pros and
cons? Absolutely not.◼ Thallium $4,000 / kg U.S. market
◼ Lead $2.06 / kg London Metal Exchange cash spotBy Samanth SubramanianElement 82 has been blamed for the fall of the Roman Empire
and for driving Renaissance artists mad. It’s the stuff of bul-
lets and leaded gasoline. And it’s sparked public health crises
in Flint, Mich., and Newark, N.J., in recent years, contaminating
water supplies and raising blood lead levels in children who were
disproportionately from poor and minority communities.
When lead binds with proteins or displaces essential metals in
the body, the effects can be catastrophic. “The beauty of lead, for
the chemist, is the fact that it can bond in a number of ways,” says
Mark Wilson, an assistant professor of chemistry at the University
of Toronto. “The danger of lead, for the biologist, is that it can
bond in a number of ways.”
But as the chemist might point out, lead isn’t all bad. Lead-
based linings protect your organs during X-rays and shield
the environment from some hazardous materials. Lead makes
your crystal wine glasses strong and sparkly and your car bat-
tery rechargeable.
Its usefulness is partly why it’s been pervasive. When the Lead
Industries Association went bankrupt in 2002,citing lack of insur-
ance for litigation, no one was left to speak for the positives.
With that in mind, Bloomberg Businessweek spoke with Matt
Sorrell, creative director of ad agency Wieden + Kennedy, to dis-
cuss whether lead’s beneficial uses could in some way redeem it.
The interview has been edited for length andclarity.82
Pb
Lead By Danielle Bochove
Lead to Lèad