Marketing Communications in Death Services in Russian Market

The purpose of the current thesis is to embed death services into marketing communication context, and revealing the appropriateness of such theoretical assumptions by means of case study and quantitative study: online survey. The For this purpose, using the theoretical concept of high consumer involvement and informational motivation, combined with peculiarities of funeral industry, the promotional communication tactics was designed. In the practical part, promotional strategy of ritual services in Russian market and, more specifically, “Ritual.ru” was analyzed and compared to promotional communications in the USA funeral industry. The findings showed that using promotional communications, according to theoretical assumptions about consumer involvement and motivation, turned out to be effective in terms of financial indicators and media metrics of “Ritual.ru”. This datum was studied more closely during internet survey, revealing the attitude of consumers towards advertising in death services. The results of the study indeed showed that advertising proves to be effective as: respondents tend to positively react to advertising of ritual services, they are aware of category need for death services, advertising increases awareness of the advertising ritual agency, and consumption of ritual services is based on informational motivation and high involvement of the consumer.