LA ads Marketing Agency wins 1st Place Telly Award for Rose Hills Memorial Park Video
(Sept. 22, 2015) Northridge, CA-based marketing agency LA ads recently won a prestigious first place 2015 Telly Award for “Excellence in local, regional, and cable television commercials and video and film productions.” This award was presented in recognition of the agency’s video for client Rose Hills Memorial Park and Mortuary called “Skydiver.” It was one of over 12,000 entries submitted from all 50 states and 5 continents for the 2015 honors.
The video featured 82-year-old retired fire captain and avid skydiver Pat Moorehead who, on his 80th birthday, celebrated by skydiving more than 80 times that day! The video concludes with Captain Moorehead talking about his making advanced funeral arrangements as he reflects on how he’d like to be remembered. The video is part of a series featured on Rose Hills’ website, www.LegacyRoseHills.com. Opticus Films produced the video series and the television commercials that were part of the overall campaign.
This is the second Telly Award won by LA ads for work created for Rose Hills. The first award was presented in 2012 for a television campaign, also produced by Opticus Films.
“We’re honored and excited to once again have our work for Rose Hills recognized by the advertising community,” said agency president and creative director Dan Katz. “It’s particularly gratifying because funeral care is a difficult category for the public to embrace, which they most certainly have with this video. We are especially thankful to Nicky Clark, Rose Hills’ marketing director, for encouraging us to step outside the boundaries of traditional cemetery marketing and explore different paths, both creatively and strategically. This video is a perfect example of our wonderful partnership with Rose Hills.”
The winning video can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/91443004 or in context with the full campaign at www.LegacyRoseHills.com
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(As published in American Cemetery & Cremation magazine, April 2015)
How to Market Cremation … Think like a Baby Boomer!
By Dan Katz
Back in the 1960s when I was a kid, the car all young Baby Boomers seemed to be driving was the VW Beetle. I bought one myself in 1971. It was small, cute and, especially, cheap. But the Beetle quickly became a lifestyle symbol that transcended its affordability. Driving a Beetle (and its big brother, the VW Bus) was a statement that said, “I don’t want to drive my parents’ big Oldsmobile; this is a car for my generation.” We Boomers painted ‘em. We stickered ‘em. We made them our own.
Even though today’s Boomers are older and grayer, they still seek self-expression and a departure from the traditions that defined their parents. That applies to music, to movies, to vacations, and certainly, to funerals. A funeral is, in a way, the ultimate lifestyle (deathstyle?) choice, the final defining statement. And thus the massive increase in cremation. For many Boomers, cremation is a simpler, faster, cleaner, greener and more relevant way to say goodbye. Though price may have first triggered the interest in cremation, now it has less to do with dollars and far more to do with love, dignity, individuality, creativity, self-expression and the quick return of departed family members back to the elements. It’s a fundamental shift in values.
So while to funeral professionals, cremation (especially without a funeral) is a painful stab at a time-honored tradition, it’s often a deep and symbolic statement for many, many consumers. What’s a concerned funeral professional to do? The answer is to listen with open ears and communicate with an open heart. It’s in perceiving cremation not as a threat but as an opportunity to serve that may open up new doors to profitability for the innovative provider.
Looking at cremation marketing through your market’s eyes
Imagine, for example, two ads. One focuses on “cheap” low-price cremations. The other talks about the value, meaningfulness, choices – and, oh yes, affordability – within the cremation experience. In the end, guess which ad will yield a more profitable return? Which provider will be in a better position to sell unique memorialization options that the family hasn’t even considered yet…options that perhaps the competition isn’t offering? Not the low-cost guy, who may or may not really be the lowest price in town the day after the ad runs.
Certainly there will always be a percentage of cremation consumers who are price-focused. But there are many more who choose cremation because it fits with their view of what’s important and what’s meaningful. Your speaking to this audience on their terms can open up a conversation that may include a powerfully moving memorial service concluding with an inurnment within a beautiful columbarium or mausoleum that family members can return to generation after generation. For Boomers who reject their parents’ traditional approach, you have the opportunity to create entirely new traditions if you’re listening and you’re creative! It’s Peace, Love, and ashes to ashes, Baby!
Your job then is to help your audience see a wider picture and to enhance their experience with all the options you have available, or that you can find or create.
Bringing Creativity to Cremation
In 1942, Pablo Picasso created a brilliant sculpture called “Bulls Head.” It didn’t take much in terms of time and materials. He simply welded a bicycle seat to some handlebars and an entirely new and wonderful piece of art was created. The philosopher Vilfredo Pareto described creativity as “nothing more nor less than a new combinations of old elements.” That’s the secret to some of the hottest restaurants in America, fusion cuisine: Korean-Cajun, Peruvian-Thai, Japanese-Southern. Fusing existing ideas together in new ways is how you can capture the iconoclastic cremation-prone Baby Boomer.
For instance, fusing traditional visitations with the classic McDonald’s burger experience, a funeral home in Compton, CA, offers drive-thru viewings. Really! Another in Savannah, GA, advertises that, because the decedent loved comedy, the funeral was held not inside a chapel but at the local comedy club. No longer a novelty but a common practice, many funeral services are being broadcast via webcam, the perfect fusing of technology and memorialization.
In the ongoing search for answers to declining income due to rising cremation rates, the solution lies in the ability to fuse together disparate ideas and develop new business models that are both attention-getting and profitable.
Where does one start? You might begin with A Whack on the Side of the Head by Roger von Oeck. It’s a wonderful book on creativity that has been praised by business people, educators, scientists, artists, marketers and writers. The book has been stimulating creativity in millions of readers, used in seminars around the world, and is the source of the spin-off “Creative Whack Pack” card deck. You can find them both on Amazon.com.
Or you can create your own fusion funeral. It’s really quite simple. Just play “What If.” And while so doing, dare to be silly, dare to be wrong, dare to be child-like, dare to be amazing, dare to be different! For instance, what would you get if you were to fuse together…
- Chinese food and caskets
- Rubber stamps, crayons and sympathy cards
- People magazine and burial rites
- Game shows, soul music and pre-need sales
Illogical? Nonsensical? Maybe. But maybe not. If you bring some imagination to the party and a willingness to use this process as a launch pad to take you to a difference place than the starting point, you’ll not only capture the imagination of Baby Boomers, you’ll find new sources of profitability while acing out your competitors. Again, it’s not about being the low-price guy.
The Fundamental Things Apply
Having a good story is critical. Telling it and having others “get it” takes discipline. Unfortunately, far too many marketers, especially on the funeral side, are haphazard when it comes to marketing fundamentals, so they end up draining their marketing budget with little to show for it. If you’re not hammering down the basics, you may be in that crowd. Specifically…
Have a written plan. This is your road map without which you will make turns, detours and spontaneous side-trips that cost money but take you nowhere. No matter what size budget you have, or how simple your marketing strategy may be, without committing it to paper, it’s a wish not a plan.
Budget for success. Marketing is a self-fulfilling prophesy: if you believe in it, you’ll invest accordingly and it will pay off. If you don’t believe in it, you’ll under-spend and you’ll be right again. Don’t short-change your success. As a rule of thumb, base your marketing budget on 5-7% of the total business you hope to have next year.
Appeal to the heart, not the wallet. Especially when it comes to funeral care, emotions drive all considerations. Find the emotional center of your story and work outward. Don’t merely enumerate a bunch of factual bullet points. At the same time, talking about caring and compassion is about as boring as it gets. (Everybody expects a funeral provider to be caring, so move on and say something they don’t expect.)
Be cynical & objective. The simple truth is that people don’t like advertising, and they really don’t like funeral advertising. So don’t drink your own Kool-Aid. Develop your marketing from the perspective of a jaded audience. Avoid industry clichés like poison. They’re what will keep you at arm’s length from your audience.
Dare to be different. When the competition zigs, you should zag. People love marketers who are daring, surprising, different and engaging. Especially in the funeral business. Do something other people will talk about or you’ll be just one more in the pack.
Stay Consistent. One of the basic tenets of marketing is consistency. If you have a unique story, tell it everywhere, all the time. Speak with the same tone and message in your social media as you do elsewhere. Don’t keep changing your tone and message. Marketing is a cumulative process and the more consistent you are, the more it strengthens your brand.
Be the Brand. Whatever your brand story, express it at every touchpoint. How your phones are answered and how your property is maintained is as much your brand as the colors on your letterhead. Do all your people know what your brand story is and how their individual jobs play into that? They should. Don’t just have a brand – be the brand.
Be patient. Once you’ve settled on a marketing direction, give it time, even if it’s 12 months or longer. Of course your salespeople want the phones ringing right now. But don’t give in to temptation and suddenly change all your ads to price offers. Stay the course and you’ll get where you’re heading.
Every Baby Boomer will recall Bob Dylan’s words: “The times, they are a-changing.” Cremation is a reality and the numbers are only moving in its direction. Now it’s up to the funeral professional to either fear cremation as a threat or embrace it as the new normal. Retooling your service options and messaging to speak to a Boomer’s perspective, and applying the fundamental disciplines of marketing will inevitably move you ahead – of your own current trajectory and that of your competition’s. Dare I say it, it could be fun too!
Dan Katz is president and creative director of LA ads – A Marketing Agency, based in Northridge, California. Katz has been creating original advertising and marketing for the funeral industry since 1994 and is a frequent speaker at major industry events. His “Dare to Be Different” approach has garnered awards and recognition both inside and outside the funeral industry. Read his bimonthly blog on funeral marketing, “Funeral Advertising for the Perplexed,” at http://www.funeraladvertising.wordpress.com.
© 2015 Dan Katz
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