24th May 2007, Swindon, United Kingdom – From Monday 21st May, a month long advertising campaign will make Television history. Swindon-based Divorce-Online broke new ground before as the first ever internet provider of low-cost divorce services and we understand this is the first time an advert promoting divorce legal services is being broadcast on British television. The pilot campaign involves forty-second spot adverts running twenty-eight times a day on the History Channel, Discovery Home and Health, Movies for Men and True Movies. Watch it on You Tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3Iw51j592A
The advert features a couple with an uncontested divorce and the expensive solicitor – the middleman, is literally rubbed out. Divorce does not have to be expensive. An uncontested divorce can be clean, simple, and cost-effective. The advert was created by Space City, the UK’s leading producer of direct response TV advertisements.
Divorce-Online was first to market in 2000 and has seen strong growth despite several copycat service providers. It was founded by Mark Keenan, a qualified paralegal expert whose personal experience meant he was on a mission to turn the nightmare of divorce into an efficient and low-cost service which saved people money. Mark realised that online advertising only reached a certain group of people with high concentrations in the South East, and major cities like Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester. TV advertising is being used to reach the masses so more people become aware they can save money.
A survey of a hundred solicitors firms established that the average cost of an uncontested divorce ranged from £850 to £2,500 plus VAT and court fees. Divorce-Online offers a DIY starter kit for as little as £65 + VAT and court fees, or a managed service which includes a financial order for £290 + VAT and court fees. The only pre-requisite is that a couple can agree on their finances and children’s arrangements: aka an ‘amicable divorce’.
Divorce-Online cuts the time taken to get divorced from several months down to sixteen weeks. The managed service is where paralegal experts complete the paperwork for you. Everything is one-step removed emotionally, which reduces stress. The online service is more convenient than using a traditional solicitor during working hours. People can choose what time of day to deal with personal matters. For instance, a TV producer for Star Wars worked abroad and could not attend solicitors’ appointments in the UK!
When asked if his company is profiting from people’s misery, Mark Keenan replies ‘We’re doing the opposite. 80% of the cases we handle are from two-year separations or uncontested divorces that would have happened anyway. We do a good, professional job for people and provide an alternative to high street solicitors; we just charge a tenth of the price! We know there is a demand for our ‘no-frills’ services because we processed 28% more cases last year and there is already a 36% increase this year. The number of marriage breakdowns is sad but these are already happening. We just help people keep more of their money to benefit themselves and their children.’
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Divorce Facts for Editors
One in three people get divorced nowadays and the latest figures for 2005 showed 155,052 divorces in England & Wales, where one in five of these were second divorces.
Where divorce was granted to the husband, there had been a two-year separation in 32% of cases.
Over 60% of users of the Divorce-Online service are women
Weblinks
Office for National Statistics (divorce information)
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=170
Related URL: http://www.divorce-online.co.uk/
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