Issue link: http://www.insightdigital.biz/i/112770
in focus { s m a l l b u s i n e s s } By S haron Ve rbete n Joining hands C ollaboration may happen a lot in business, but rarely among competitors. But in tough economic times, a handful of Green Bay funeral homes are teaming up to get the public thinking, and talking, about death. ���We���re promoting an opportunity to a fast-paced society,��� says Joe Schinkten, funeral director/owner of Ryan Funeral Home in De Pere. ���We���ve got a great story to tell ��� we just need a way to tell it.��� To that end, Ryan and 10 other Green Bay funeral homes have contributed time, ideas and money to launch the Good Mourning Network, a locally produced marketing campaign with one key idea at its core: ���It���s time to rethink funerals.��� Drive down any of the main roads in Green Bay, and you may have seen looming billboards with that phrase ��� or one of several others ��� touting the value of not having a ���cookie cutter funeral.��� But just what prompted such collaboration? The players in the Green Bay funeral industry, it seems, never really considered themselves competitors. Longtime funeral director Schinkten said funeral directors in Brown County have long been friends, even having formed the Greater Green Bay Funeral Directors Association. ���All these years, we have helped each other,��� Schinkten says. ���Really in the funeral market, that���s unheard of. ���We don���t have competitors; we have colleagues. We know that we���re the anomaly.��� In the last few years, there has been a marked national increase in cremations, which has greatly impacted the funeral industry with more families choosing to dispense with funeral services. In light of that, some of the funeral homes had approached Arketype, a marketing firm in Green Bay, about doing some advertising to change the way the public considered death and pre-planning funerals. Ross Mollet, associate creative director at Arketype, offered a novel SHARON VERBETEN Green Bay funeral homes collaborate to market their industry Bob Walczak, left, of Proko-Wall Funeral Home in Green Bay and Joe Schinkten of Ryan Funeral Home in De Pere represent two of the 11 funeral homes in Green Bay as part of the Good Mourning Network. idea. ������What if you guys pooled some resources? What if we created a brand?��� Almost everything we shared, they really liked.��� Enter the Good Mourning Network, a branding of the 11 funeral homes whose collective message and ���call to action��� is the message promoted by its URL ��� www.rethinkfunerals.com. ���It���s about the message,��� adds Bob Walczak, second-generation funeral director at Proko-Wall Funeral Home in Green Bay. The collaboration provides equity among the group. Each funeral home pays a prorated share of the cost of the campaign based on the number of licensed funeral directors at their Billboard messages designed by Arketype for the Good Mourning Network are designed to get people thinking about their funeral plans. 40 | Insight ��� M a r c h 2 013 w w w. i n s i g h t o n b u s i n e s s . c o m