Pettigrew Family Funerals

Pettigrew Family Funerals are a proud, independently owned and family run business that has been operating in the Hunter region for over 50 years. They offers exceptional services to their community at an affordable price and help those at one of the most vulnerable points in their life.

Pettigrew had just opened new world class facilities for families in the Hunter region to use, including a new state of the art chapel and wake catering and communal areas.
They engaged Headjam to help re introduce themselves to the local community and help ensure those that were in need knew they were here to help. In a world where most funeral directors are owned by two or three larger companies, Pettigrew has stayed completely independent and family run so we all wanted to ensure this was understood by the local community.

Attention to detail was evident as a core philosophy across every touch point delivered at Pettigrew, and we were tasked with elevate=ing the Pettigrew brand identity to emanate this same level of thoughtfulness.

Local residents in the Hunter region needing help during a difficult time.

Care without compromise.

'Pettigrew are a local funeral provider I know and trust.’

Updating the brand identity, website design, website development and launching a new advertising campaign were our focus for us to achieve Pettigrew’s goals.

To ensure people weren’t overwhelmed at the time they were looking for a Funeral Director we created a sturdy and calming colour palette for the brand of deep teals and gold embellishments.

The logo is set in a modern sans serif with customised letters, the 'g' pays homage to the handwriting of Ian Pettigrew, one of the former directors. The supporting geometric pattern was inspired by custom tiles installed in the reception area and draws a link to the elements in the previous logo, honouring the family history of the company.

After a lot of industry research we recommended to step away from clichéd imagery of smiling faces or hands – instead we chose a route that felt elegant and sincere. Using the expertise of the in-house floral arranger, we selected predominantly Australian natives and photographed these on a deep teal background. This approach to imagery allowed us to avoid stereotypes often found in photographing people to portray such a personal experience.

Combining the photography with the support line ‘We make a difficult time a little easier’ we created simple and sincere campaign assets. These became a core element alongside the new brand in the website design and development. We produced traditional TV adverts that were also run digitally as pre rolls or social media short form content and hundreds of assets that focused on supporting those at this difficult time in their life.

Given that people who need the services Pettigrew provide are often facing some of the most difficult things anyone can face, loosing a loved one, we implemented the roll out of a CRM and system that collated all enquiries into one spot, wether that was messenger on Facebook or instagram, emails or web forms to ensure people could ask for help on a platform that worked for them not the other way around and created a pipeline for their internal team to report on the enquiries at any given time.

The refreshed brand was executed across a variety of collateral including bespoke tissue paper, foiled business cards and elegant brochures. A necklace was designed for the family as a personal memento using the bespoke geometric pattern that was inspired by the previous Pettigrew logo, a nod to the deeply personal connection and care that the family continue to bring to their business.

Since the website launched, enquiries have increased by more than 150% when measuring month to month reporting through form submission and social messaging outreach. Search engine optimisation (SEO) has played a large part of our strategy, ensuring Pettigrew are searchable when people need them the most. Headjam are now regularly collaborating with Petigrew to develop additional creative content across video, design, development and copy for blogs and longer form content for information on the service pages of the site. Research is regularly undertaken by the internal team and from this tweaks to the user interface design continue to be improved, ensuring people can access information in a simple and quick manner.

Pettigrew continue to be one of the only independently run funeral providers in the Newcastle and Hunter region, making a difficult time a little easier.