Let's Talk Death, again!

The funeral business is a £2 billion market with 600k new joiners every year.

 

Baby boomers, or mature consumers as we like to call them, will be the customers over the next 20 years or so, and from the research we commissioned, seem unlikely to 'go gentle into that good night' when their time comes, probably preferring to 'rage, rage against the dying of the light'!

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Back in March 2023, we had a dig around and put together a Black Paper summarising our thoughts on this sector but as the year unfolded noticed lots more talk about funerals. 

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From Radio 4’s ‘We need to talk about death’ with Joan Bakewell, to Poppy’s Funerals pioneering work to put a fresh face on funerals, Stacey Dooley’s unflinching behind the scenes investigation of ‘Inside the Undertakers’, to the Coop encouraging us to start talking about death on TV and an article in The Times in late November referencing that only 47% of people currently want a funeral when they've gone, and of course, there are the annual editions of the Sun Life Cost of Dying report.

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We foolishly thought Wow, a taboo is slowly but surely being broken! Conversations are striking up around death.

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So we went one better, and just before Xmas 2023, asked future customers of the funeral sector what they have to say about the manner of their departure when the time comes.

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And here it is, straight from the horse's mouth, 70 people over the age of 50 answered the questions of ‘What they thought their final send-off should be’ and ‘How a celebration of life would look for them’…?

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Grab a cuppa, have a watch:

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We spent the first 6 months of 2024 fretting over the demise of tradition and the rise of direct cremation and commoditisation, and based on what we'd heard rustled up some answers to share with the funeral sector, addressing questions like these:

 

• How can you strike up a conversation with people on the subject of death that’s not just about a ‘plan’?

 

• What different products and services could and should you be providing?

 

• How do you ‘pivot’ with integrity and honesty, from death, religion and disposal to the more enjoyable celebration of life?

 

• How might you refocus a business model where costs and fees are eroding rapidly, to become more entrepreneurial, imaginative and profitable?

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This got us a couple of good conversations with Chrissy Fice at Dignity in 2024, who then left!

 

Checking around the gossip in the industry, it seems absolutely nothing has changed since. But one thing is for sure, neither has the mindset of the future customer and so we believe our thoughts are more valid than ever. Time waits for...

 

So if you're in the business, and need another perspective, just give us a call and let's meet for a chat.​​