A quick summation of our interviews
Throughout the last few weeks our team of obituary researchers has been conducting open-ended interviews with acquaintances who, we believe, fall outside of Legacy.com’s traditional audience demographic.
I had the enviable task of compiling all of these interviews, hoping to make some inferences on the general public’s opinions of obituaries. Our sample of interviewees comprises men and women, between the ages of 21 and 42, residing in locations from New York to Boise.
One of the first questions on our list was, “When you think of an obituary, what comes to mind?” Not surprisingly, most responses sounded something like, “Death,” “Death” and “Death.” The older the interviewee was, the less likely they were to give such a straightforward answer.
Similarly, the younger a person was, the less likely they were to read obituaries on any kind of a regular basis. And why not? “The connotation of obituaries is so melancholic that it isn’t an emotion I want to tap into that often,” one responder answered. Since the start of this project, I have said that we need to let people know that obituaries are not just about death. Yes, death is the cause of the article, but it isn’t the content. (I believe this was also mentioned in Marilyn Johnson’s The Dead Beat, as well).
We got mixed reviews on our proposition to hire a professional journalist to write a loved one’s obituary. Some said “absolutely not” and others were quite keen on the idea. “It’s the quality of the writing that matters.” Anyone out there in blog land have an opinion on this idea?
There was also a wide range of answers to questions on advertising content. Several said that there shouldn’t be any advertising, which, I mean, come on. We all need to eat! Even the folks over at Legacy. Others just said to keep it tasteful, and suggested that a cigarette ad shouldn’t be on the memorial page of someone who died of lung cancer.
One of my favorite responses was to a question on what would be inappropriate on a site like Legacy.com. “Good time stuff,” one person said. She was adverse to the idea of memorial pages including adds for strip clubs, escort services and the like. I think we can all agree on that.
Personally I think advertising can be somewhat consoling in difficult times. Imagine the following scenario: You have just returned home from the funeral of a relative, such as an aunt or uncle. You’re rather bummed out and aren’t sure what to do next. You flip on the TV, and there is the talking baby E-Trade commercial. Always good for a laugh. Next comes a spot for Sonic, or some other local eatery. Now with your spirits slightly lifted, you and your other grieving relatives decide not to wallow in your sorrows and go have dinner together. With a meal in your stomach, (eating is not a grieving person’s first priority) you start to remember the funny stories about Uncle Jim, rather than just dwell on the sad fact of his death. But that’s just me…
Hello,
My grandmother died last week, and family members placed an obituary in a newspaper which partners with legacy.com.
Both there, and on the legacy.com site, there are never any fewer than three ads displayed for unrelated products, often using flash animation.
they included coke, smokeless cigarettes, chocolate, mousetraps, laundry detergent, cars, banks, pizza, hair care products, etcetera.
i was, to put it mildly, very disturbed by this; I did a search to see if anyone online shared my opinion, and apparently some of the people you interviewed agree with me.
since their interviews are over, and they don’t have a chance to respond to your criticisms of their opinions, allow me to do so on their behalf.
Legacy.com needs to eat. Yes. That is true.
They have contracts with hundreds of newspapers around the country which provide a continual revenue stream.
Also, beginning with the innocent-sounding link “Keep guestbook online,” Legacy.com commences to offer an incredibly wide range of multi-tiered services for online memorials which provide a massive percentage of profit to the company, based upon their actual cost.
In addition, they redirect visitors to partner sites selling services such as flowers, photobooks, jewelry, etcetera. These are all things that grieving families might actually want to find, and i have no complaint with it, but there it obviously generates either a direct fee being paid to legacy.com by those companies, or there is a per-purchase commission they receive.
My point being, that if you eliminate the unrelated third-party advertising, you will see that Legacy.com is still, in fact, eating very, very well.
A company in the death industry that they would exploit the grief of their customers by trying to squeeze a few more pennies out of them with third-party ads, is, to me, completely unconscionable.
If you went to the funeral of a loved one, and found that the mortician had slapped a bumpersticker advertising Freschetta Pizza Crust on the side of their coffin, would your response honestly be “Oh well, I guess the funeral home needs to eat!”
Of course it would not. Because you would know that the family paid for a specific service, and more importantly, a service that is already completely inflated in price, and is one of the most sensitive services that anyone ever pays for, as it is at a time when they are very emotional (and thus suggestible, as well), and so for all those reasons and a dozen more, there is no possible justification for the bumper sticker to be there.
Legacy.com purports to handle the obituaries of two-thirds of all deaths in the united states. I was not involved in the decision of where to post my grandmother’s obituary, but I can assure you that when the day comes that I am in a position to have to make such a decision about memorializing a loved one, I will most definitely seek out a publication in the other 1/3.
As you said at the end of your post, “That’s just me.”
Mr. Schutzman,
Thanks for writing. We are well aware of the issue around legacy’s advertising. We are still in the process of narrowing down our final proposal to the company but we are definitely keeping this in mind.
The editorial team
It would appear to me that Ms. Glick has made up her mind on the issue, and while there may be room for debate in regards to the advertising on Legacy.com, I do not believe that there is any substantial confusion about the difference between objective journalism and personal opinion.
Based upon the language and tone of this post, it frankly appears that your entire project amounts to just going through the motions of data-gathering, and then cherry-picking the results to produce a final product that you, yourselves, are comfortable with.
If it is your intention to become journalists, or to impress Legacy.com, or to simply get a passing grade from your instructors, then I would advise that “The editorial team” make a more concerted effort to curb such editorializing in the future.