7 October 2010 – The Good Funeral Guide

Going down

This from the monochrom website:

In the age of data mining, a person’s sex life may contain less embarrassing details than their web search history. Does it make sense that the former is a tightly guarded secret while the latter is shared with anonymous corporations daily? Even though a sexual nature is one of the few things most humans share in common, our social convention is to push all trace of it out of the public sphere. The Six Feet Under Club offers attendees a unique opportunity to experience the warping of public and private intimate space.

At monochrom‘s Arse Elektronika conference, couples can volunteer to be buried together in a casket beneath the ground. The space they occupy will be extremely private and intimate. The coffin is a reminder of the social norm of exclusive pair bonding “till death do us part”. However, this intimate scene will be corrupted by the presence of a night vision webcam which projects the scene on to an outside wall. The audience will be privy to the scene inside, but the volunteers in the coffin will be completely isolated from them. The scenario keeps the intimacy of a sexual moment intact while moving the private act into public space. It can be seen as an absurd parody of pornographic cinema or an examination of the high value placed on sexual privacy. Either way, won’t you become a member of the Six Feet Under Club?

Cunning stunt

A consumers’ co-operative whose aim is to enable ordinary working people to buy things they would not otherwise be able to afford; one which exists to provide a service for its members rather than generate profits for shareholders. A good thing, yes? It gets better. This consumers’ co-op also has an altruistic, ethical agenda for social change.

You’d think any such enterprise would be incredibly proud of itself. Dammit, it ought to be a national treasure.

So where did it all go so wrong for Co-operative Funeralcare?

And here’s the big question: What’s the point of it?

Let’s not get started, we’ll still be at it come Christmas. Let’s just look at Funeralcare’s new marketing trick for luring funeral consumers into its lair.

Mylocalfuneraldirector.co.uk

It looks like quite a helpful website for anyone planning a funeral and looking for a funeral director. It looks and reads like an (indifferent) independent consumer cheap online pharmacy without prescription resource.

Until you type your town into the Find Your local Funeral Director box.

Only a deeply damaged brand behaves like this.

Domain name:

         mylocalfuneraldirector.co.uk

     Registrant:
         The Co-operative Group

     Registrant type:
         UK Industrial/Provident Registered Company, (Company number: IP0525R)

     Registrant's address:
         9th Floor
         New Century House
         Corporation Street
         Manchester
         Greater Manchester
         M60 4ES
         United Kingdom