By Brandon Garbutt, Chief Operating Officer at Capital Legacy

Let’s be honest, wills aren’t exactly an exciting topic! But if you knew the chaos and drama that ensues for your family if you pass away without one – you would stop everything you’re doing right now and have it drafted immediately.

We’ve seen the devastating consequences of not having a valid will in place, first-hand. The disbelief, disappointment, stress, financial pressure, and family feuds we’ve encountered could make for a dramatic soapie of epic proportions. 

We wanted to bring this message to life through an advert that we hoped would grab attention and resonate with all South Africans, and most importantly shift the dial in helping more South Africans get their wills in place.

And so, we collaborated with some fantastic creative minds and produced a TV ad that dramatised a family chaos scene when they find out that their deceased father had no will in place.

We’ve been blown away at the response to this campaign, over 9 million South Africans have viewed our ad, either on online platforms or on television and the engagement has been astounding. This excites us as we know that we have at the very least made people aware of wills and brought the topic to the fore.

Our advert has received various advertising accolades since going live just a couple months ago, including Ad of the month by Marklives.com, a Creative Circle award, voted as Hero Ad on Bruce Whitfield’s 702 talk show, and just this week it even gained international attention and was named one of the top 6 TV ads of the week by “Bestadsontv.com”. 

While we’re obviously extremely chuffed at this recognition, what’s most important to us is that the ad has the desired effect in terms of people taking action and getting their wills drafted.

In the first 8 weeks of the campaign, we helped over 25,000 South Africans get their wills drafted. This is encouraging but with 75 to 80% of the population passing away with a will, we know that the task is great and we are resolute in our mission!

Off the back of the advert, we also ran an awareness campaign with our financial advisor partners asking them for their first-hand accounts of wills-related situations they’ve encountered over the years. We received hundreds of responses back from them and the stories ranged from cringeworthy, to bizarre and some, simply shocking. No wills, outdated wills, incorrectly signed wills, not signed wills, lost wills, ex-spouses contesting wills, no guardian nomination wills. 

These scenarios caused unnecessary stress and heartache to the loved ones left behind. Families have lost their homes and children placed with guardians that weren’t the parents intended choice. The main theme throughout was the utter chaos that families are left with and the drama that could have been avoided if only the deceased’s will had been in place.

For more than a decade we’ve been beating the drum about the importance of wills, and seeing the response to this TV ad, shows that our message in finally resonating. If you have any assets, own a property, have children or any dependents, a will is non-negotiable.

Is your will in place?

Capital Legacy can assist you in getting your affairs in order in under an hour, all you need to do is speak to your financial advisor or contact us: www.capitallegacy.co.za  

If you haven’t yet seen our “Where there’s no will, there’s drama” ad on social media or TV, you can watch it here, we hope you enjoy it. And we hope you take action. 

Connect with Brandon via LinkedIn.

This post was first published at https://www.capitallegacy.co.za/article/76/capital-legacys-last-will-and-testament-tv-ad-gains-international-attention