Macabre Marketing: Forest Lawn Macabre Marketing Forest

Macabre Marketing: Forest Lawn Macabre Marketing Forest Lawn and the entrance of 'dark tourism' in Los Angeles "Crypt For Sale: overlooking ocean by private owner" reads the ad. A classified post in the sea of advertising in the Megalopolis of Los Angeles, the mortuary market is significant in terms of combining funerary services with the delicacies of celebrity thanatourism. It is an underestimate to argue that Southern California's cemetery real estate is at a premium. Forest Lawn Mortuaries located throughout the Southland, reflect precision in consumer segmentation.

Much like the planned communities of the San Fernando Valley surrounding Forest Lawn Mortuaries, 'communities' adjacent find comfortable simulacra in the marketing, spatial organization and classification of the deceased by according to branding and segregation resonant with class identification. Property ownership and its confining boundaries of memory and social contract merge in the most elite location at Forest Lawn in the plot section, "God's Acre" (Forest Lawn, 2011). In Los Angeles, the prescription for autonomy as private and anonymity as public continues in death as in life.

Eternally facing the heavens, the wealthy remain spatially closest to the skies above the smog covered basin. Those unable or unwilling conversely are sold on the Isle of "Contentment" parallel to the 134 freeway. According to Founder, Hubert Eaton's proclamation titled "The Builder's Creed" -- the vision behind Forest Lawn's master plan included counters to death: fresh flowers encouraged in contribution (Forest Lawn, 2011). Reproductions of a "natural" landscape were sustainable, as well as lawn mower leveled markers, whereas artificial flowers are banned.

Immortality is marketed as nothing short of the beginning of a new life. Forest Lawn's brochure offers a wide variety of "resting places" or selection of interment property in "all price ranges." A virtual conglomerate in memorial property, the Mortuary makes a killing in both ground property, and in single and companion lawn and wall crypts, as well as ground plots and niches for cremated remains. Distinguished family memorials are also available to the discretionary client. Prices vary per location (Table 1).

Memorial Property Pricing Starting Prices Property With Endowment Care Covina Hills 2,000 2,300 Cypress 2,000 2,300 Glendale 2,300 2,645 Hollywood Hills 2,300 2,645 Long Beach ** 3,600 4,140 Cathedral City * 6,800 7,820 Down payment of 15% is required to maintain the property price within the Mortuary's Endowment Care Fund. An agent "ready to assist" solicits the caption on the map of the Forest Lawn grounds, replete with home phone and beeper numbers; your future "home" is just a phone call away, "Everything for the final tribute has been provided.

undertaking, cemetery, crematorium, churches and flowers may be made conveniently at one location resulting in saving of time and money" (Forest Lawn, 2011). While cemeteries had of course always been a part of community life in the United States as elsewhere, since the industrial revolution of the late 19th century, cemeteries have literally been transformed into cultural institutions (Mitford, 1969, Schwartz, 2003). Indeed, "whether it's a school graduation, denominational convention, conference, temporary worship location, or large gathering, Forest Lawn has a wide range of facilities to choose from" (Forest Lawn, 2011).

Facilities for weddings and corporate receptions are priced for a fee, as well as a menu of other event services available to the public: Educational Series, Hosted Community Events, Museum Exhibits, Speaker Series and Sponsored Programs (Forest Lawn, 2011). The entrance of dark tourism is germane to a number of world class cities, like New Orleans, Paris, and Salem, popularized by their macabre culture of death and memory as patrimony to the living (Sharpley and Stone, 2009).

With its horror genre films and dominant Chicano/Mexican Cultural roots in celebrations such as the Day of the Dead, LA is a perfect case study in the macabre. Death Sells. It permeates the trademark of celebrities and commodities everywhere. Early mortuary consumer models of marketing relied upon the "dominant" Western culture in the United States. Christianity and patriotism still prevail; the backdrop to Forest Lawn's multicultural community (Sharpley and Stone, 2009).

If cemetery consumption has never been denoted by a "willing" customer, the inevitability that one day each and every one of us will be the sacrificial lamb to "In God We Trust" on.