Special People

What?! A cemetery advertising its parks and mortuaries? What the heck for?
Drop dead deadlines. Ideas getting killed. Mothers (and David Ogilvy) turning over their graves.
We’ve heard it all. And it didn’t stop us dead on our tracks (yes, we can’t help ourselves either).

With a very small and limited budget, this TV spot/video had to fulfill several multi-fold goals––
1) increase awareness for this local, but landmark brand in the Southern California area (Los Angeles and Orange County)
2) share the brand’s 100 plus-year manifesto and make it relatable today
3) challenge perceptions about the cemetery industry by humanizing it
4) recruit quality and value-aligned new employees
5) and inspire and motivate current employees.

All above goals are typically projects that get their own budget and require their own videos.
But with a small regional brand such as Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks and Mortuaries, we had to make do with one meaningful spot to service all points. And make it count we did.

Forest Lawn took on this challenge and turned the long list of limitations on its head by taking on a much loftier approach than that of a tactical one.
By declaring a far greater stance on the subject of quality of life and embracing love and compassion for another as our reason to be, we took ownership of being stewards of life, not death. That in fact, while the advertising is for a cemetery, it’s for the celebration of life.
That caring is what ultimately elevates our cemetery from just a plot of land however beautiful, but rather into a group of kind, helpful and well-meaning individuals that come to a person’s or family’s side during their darkest hour.
In a time when employees are constantly leaving on an average of 6 months to 2 years, Forest Lawn employees average on 15 years. Some even 35. Or lifers.