Funeral homes adapt in video age
DVD tributes are a sign of a changing industry
After Susan McDaniel's funeral last summer, family members and friends of the 10-year-old gathered around a television at St. Peter's church in Weston. Devastated by her death, they found solace in a video about her life.
''It was very moving and obviously difficult, but there were many positive comments," said Susan's father, Jim McDaniel.
A month earlier, knowing a brain tumor would soon take his daughter, McDaniel had sought a way to keep her memory vivid. ''I spent time going through pictures we had collected of her from early infancy onward," he said. ''They helped me appreciate the richness of her life, which is hard to focus on when you're dealing with the horrible end stages of a horrible disease."
He decided the photographs could be part of a ''lasting tribute" and hired Play it Again Video Productions to assemble a 12½-minute DVD. The Needham company has produced about 30 similar ''video legacies," said owner Erik Schlichtmann. ''There's old Yankee blood around here, so there's a certain resistance from funeral directors," he said. ''But I think they're going to hit and take off."
And probably soon. The $11 billion death-care industry is undergoing a transformation as allegiance to tradition gives way to personalization and more people become involved in arranging memorial services for themselves and loved ones. In response, some funeral directors are repositioning themselves as event managers and looking for new sources of revenue, such as videos.
Robert Biggins, incoming president of the National Funeral Directors Association, understands. Two plasma-screen televisions hang at his Magoun-Biggins Funeral Home in Rockland. ''If you told me three years ago that I would have these here, I'd have said you're crazy," Biggins said. Today, he considers them essential.
''There was a time when there was only one color car," Biggins said. Now ''there are other ways that people are doing funerals and it's a challenge for us to provide those things and still turn a profit. . . . We're not having the large funerals we once had."
Baby boomers eager to control everything from trans fats to stock plans appear bent on micro-managing themselves to the grave, but their customized send-offs often do not reflect deep-rooted family or religious values.
In the old days, the funeral business was as certain as taxes.
''Twenty-five years ago, if I knew what church someone went to, I pretty much knew what the ritual was going to be; it just came along with that particular church," said David Walkinshaw, owner of Saville & Grannan funeral home in Arlington and spokesman for the Massachusetts Funeral Directors Association. ''Now we have to struggle with how many options to present to people."
Many of the choices involve cremation. The results of a national study by Wirthlin Worldwide released earlier this year showed that nearly half of those surveyed prefer it over burial. The reason most often cited was price.
''People just don't perceive value in fancy, expensive funerals anymore," said Ron Hast, publisher of Mortuary Management magazine and the Funeral Monitor newsletter. ''Boomers may bring more deaths, but they aren't going to bring more funeral business."
Cremation arranged through a funeral home in this area costs about $1,500, compared with $6,100 for the typical burial (without a cemetery plot). If the body is incinerated immediately after death, the price can be lower -- it eliminates the need for a coffin, embalming, and cosmetic restoration. Biggins said that does a disservice to survivors because ''a body being present is part of the grieving process." A funeral without one ''is like a wedding without a bride or a baptism without a baby," he said.
But they are likely to become more common. The Cremation Association of North America estimates that 693,000 -- about 28.6 percent -- of the 2.4 million US deaths in 2003 resulted in cremation, compared with 19 percent 10 years ago. It projects a 35 percent rate by 2010.
Hast said the industry has been too slow to react. ''As a result, many people ask for disposition [of a body] without any ceremony," he said.
The expanding list of alternatives to solemn parlors, dark suits, and garden-size floral arrangements means funeral directors must ''think more creatively," Biggins said. The focus should be on services instead of products, he said, or ''we absolutely will go away." It is a message he plans to emphasize as president of the funeral directors association.
The association has sponsored a teleconference on ''surviving cremation," and its website, www.nfda.com, suggests service themes to attract customers. One is for an ''avid cowboy or cowgirl [who] may want to ride off into the sunset one last time." A hearse is replaced by a covered wagon and mourners are invited to a post-service barbecue.
''They're testimonials. It's about hospitality and refreshments -- comfort food," Hast said. For example, in a seaside community ''someone might be cremated and then people go to the yacht club for Sunday brunch" and to watch a video tribute, he said.
Funeral homes have not given up entirely on selling products. The Magoun-Biggins ''merchandise center" includes a $9,000 high-end bronze casket and a wooden model that can be rented for about $1,000. The body is placed in a compressed fiberboard liner with a simulated wood grain pattern. ''A fancy way to say cardboard," Biggins said, jiggling a rear latch to demonstrate how the liner slides out for cremation.
Urns on nearby shelves resembled over-sized knickknacks. ''The Timeless" is marble, ''The Memory" is a ''dignified and elegant" temporary container, and a $625 polymer resin ''honor rock" has a hidden compartment .
The country's 21,500 funeral homes also face competition that did not exist a decade ago. Coffins are sold at retail stores (including Costco) and through websites such as funeraldepot.com, ''where overpaying is not dignified." It advertises discounts of up to 70 percent and ''free next-day casket delivery." Video tributes can be ordered directly from memorymovie.com and other on-line companies. And a frontier wing of the death-care industry touts environmentally friendly ''green" burials, which do not require a casket. Or a funeral director.
But the most formidable threat to the mainstream funeral business may not rise from ashes or dirt.
During a conference at NFDA headquarters in Brookfield, Wis., about 2½ years ago, industry officials confronted the future. ''We asked, who is going to fill our shoes if we don't adapt?" Biggins said. The ensuing conversation centered on two corporations, one with a surplus of space, the other a masterful planner of celebrations:
''It's reality," he said. ''The only thing they lack is the ability to care for a dead human body."
Mark Pothier can be reached at mpothier@globe.com.
