FAREWILL
A COLORFUL LIFE
BRIEF
Think about all the industries that have been disrupted over the past decade. Banking, insurance, real estate, hotels, entertainment, the list is endless and yet there’s one that has remained resolutely stuck in the Victorian era. DEATH.
The same dusty service. The same cobwebby poems. Into the hearse, out of the hearse. A sausage roll at the wake.
That’s not how I want to go out. It’s not how anyone wants to go out. So, let’s start talking about what we do want. Farewill makes dealing with funerals, wills and probate simple, affordable and, most importantly, personal. They wanted to show the world how different they were to their tired competitors and turned to us to help get the UK talking about the last taboo: our deaths.
IDEA
First you take the ashen bones and remains of a dearly loved one. You spoon them into the ugliest, most generic, porcelain known to humanity. Then you put them up on a shelf until the cat knocks them off. Such a weird way to honour a life.
But an urn could be so much more. We just needed to find someone to wholly reimagine how they look and what they stand for. So we set our sights on finding the most joyous, colourful, vivacious creator in the UK, so there could be no doubt in our audience’s mind that Farewill was nothing like the rest of the Funeral industry. Someone that could open up a conversation about the last thing any of us want to talk about.
We found exactly that person in John Booth.
Best known for his striking graphic vases, John is also a favourite of the fashion world having worked with Fendi, Sunspel and Paul Smith and exhibited around the world to huge critical acclaim. In short, the last person you’d expect to create your final resting place.
A riot of colour and shapes, John’s designs took everything you expected from a funeral urn and buried it six feet under. Ceramic flowers, bold graphic forms, striking colour, unusual shapes and structures; these were objects made to celebrate the brilliance and uniqueness of a life, not file it away on a shelf.
RESULTS
We’ll spare you a pointless reach figure but coverage appeared across a hugely broad spectrum of media, from the Daily Star to the FT’s How To Spend It - covering off the likes of the Evening Standard as well as all of the UK’s design focused media like Wallpaper and It’s Nice That.
Social coverage was universally positive too. Our favourite:
“I adore this campaign - as someone who recently had to go through this I can’t tell you how important it is to have beautiful options to honour your loved one with 🧡💛💚💙💗”