For the past 20 years or so since the advent of online news by the legacy television news broadcasters there has been a “blurring of the lines” between news and advertising.  I happened to run across this apparent “ad-vertorial” for national online direct cremation company Tulip Cremation the other day and just wanted to post it to Funeral Director Daily to show how some companies who may compete with you are gaining traction.

This apparent video ad-vertorial, which I think is well done is somewhat, in my opinion, masqueraded as a 4-minute “Local Living” story by Las Vegas’ NBC  Channel 3.  However, running on the content concurrent with the story is a tag-line “Sponsored by Tulip Cremation”.  More than likely, although we cannot be assured so, this is a tip that the media time is “bought” media time by Tulip Cremation that looks like a feature story.

There is nothing wrong with this, and it generally allows for good promotion of your business because, unlike an interview, the advertising company can generally direct the questions it wants to get across.

Here’s my thoughts on this percieved “advertorial”:

• It gets across the low-pricing of Tulip as you can see the prices on the laptop computer screens at times
• It tells the consumer how easy it is. . . .at death, expecting a death, or pre-planning
• It allows the consumer to see that it could be convenient

And, here’s a couple of negative thoughts on this presentation:

• Maybe Tulip should offer a “Concierge” service and deliver the remains in person to the family.  The options of “Receiving them in the mail” or “stopping by our locations to pick them up” was a turn-off to me
• I didn’t go through the online pre-planning sign up, but what about informing and options for “After Cremation Memorialization Options” such as urns, Eterneva, Parting Stone, Better Place Forests, etc as part of the experience.  In my opinion, not only would it put valuable and needed options into the minds of the consumers, but it could bring in ancilary revenue to Tulip.

Again, my reasoning for bringing this forth today is just to show funeral homes and crematories in and near larger cities some of the competition you are up against. . . especially in the “Direct Cremation with No Services” part of our offerings.  The price point and “news type” information on a topic like this might very well “extend the geographic reach” of the product putting this product in competition with smaller, rural funeral homes.

Hard to Tell — News item or advertorial??? :  The Morning Blend — Fox 47 News  – Lansing (MI)

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