17 May 2010 – The Good Funeral Guide

Dig those stats

I received this interesting insight into Dignity’s profitability the other day from a good friend of the GFG, Andrew Plume.

I was mulling over some Dignity stats the other day.

Much is made of 65,000 funerals having been carried out for year ending December 2009. Given that they merrily declare having “546 funeral locations” in the UK, are those figures really that strong?

This equates to 119 funerals per branch per year. That’s hardly impressive and looking at the name firms that they trade under, some of whom were fantastic names when long ago independent, I would personally be very unhappy with these results. As I’ve said before, some of these branches simply have to be considerably under performing. Dignity reckon that their market share last year was 11.8%. Is that really such a good ‘return’?

Compare this to at least two independent family firms that I know well. They both own their own buildings and each only trade from one location. Both are on course for 550-600 funerals this year, possibly more. Each of them have minimal advertising costs and no vast amounts of area management to pay for, which is the case with Dignity. Both of these firms are cheaper than Dignity.

Not difficult to draw conclusions on profitability?

Hmnn…

Thanks, Andrew!

A funeral is a branding exercise

“The woman seated next to me on the plane told me her name was Stefanie but that she went by Adventure Girl … Then Adventure Girl asked me what my brand was. No one had ever asked me that before.”

Thus begins a quest by Joel Stein to find his brand.

“To get my brand out there, I consulted Amy Jo Martin, whose company, Digital Royalty, creates social-media strategies to increase the reach of people like Shaquille O’Neal. Martin wanted to define my brand further and asked me to describe myself. I told her I was lazy, self-involved and sexually frustrated. Martin, who is very good at her job, turned “lazy” into “needing stimulation,” which she then turned into “dynamic” and finally “rock star.” She transformed “self-involved” into “open.” Starting to get it, I suggested that “sexually frustrated” is really just “sexy.” “I think the first two for sure,” she said.

“By the end of our conversation, Martin had convinced me that in the age of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr, putting out an exaggerated version of your personality is necessary. Sure, we want the people in our lives to have a full understanding of us, but controlling our shorthand is a good idea. It’s like our superhero costumes, only not necessarily supergay. If you don’t give your brand some thought, you become the guy whose funeral is all about how much he loved the Mets.

“”A funeral is the ultimate brand evaluation,” Martin said.”

What an interesting idea!

Read the whole piece here.