Driving up personalisation to the next level

Charles 28 Comments
Charles

This is The Cooperative Funeralcare’s new telly ad. Lorinda Robinson, Head of Marketing, The Co-operative Funeralcare, said: “The advert focuses on personalisation and The Co-operative Funeralcare’s ability to deliver personal touches to make a funeral more memorable and respectful. The business has been a pioneer in TV advertising in the funeral industry and the new advert highlights how, as the UK’s leading Funeral Director, we ensure that every funeral we arrange is completely personal and unique.”

28 Comments

    1. Charles

      You may be right, but I’m not so optimistic about it, Evelyn. The worst part is that it’s a very good advert that makes its point, but it reinforces the image of funerals as off-the-shelf products that haven’t changed in living memory, and aren’t going to other than by rebranding them with fabulously imaginitive outside the box thinking such as taking the hearse on a detour.

      Hovis funerals, with chilli jam.

  1. Charles

    They make it all look very cosy don’t they? I wonder how they would have done it had his hobby been travelling on the Dover-Calais ferry ?

  2. Charles

    I think you are harsh, Jonathan. How many other funeral directors would offer a detour? This is a USP. You forgot to add ‘and stop on a bridge’.

    I’m not so sure about the ‘grim oop north’ canal. And I’d prefer a salute to the rather dyspeptic bow. But I hope it gets people talking.

    1. Charles

      Oh alright, Charles; just to make up, here’s a little poem to read at the funeral –

      ‘Straight from the fridge
      and over the bridge
      across the canal.

      How banal.’

  3. Charles
    Mark Elliott & Ann.L

    I think that in this Country we are always going to have traditional funerals after all this is England and we are Traditionalists . The funeral I arrange and conduct and the families I look after 95% of them have a traditional funeral its very rare to have anything else although the option is there.

  4. Charles

    It’s a shame they didn’t find time in the Ad to feature their industrial estate premises as the start point. After all, they are proud of them?

    Then again – I suppose the slogan ‘you get your own personal space in our warehouse too’ doesn’t exactly have the same cosy feel to it.

  5. Charles

    yep

    yet yet more expensive F’care advertising and of course built into the cost of their funerals, nothing is done by them without passing ‘the costs on’

    andrew

      1. Charles

        Jonathan
        Why would you refer to the racist comments made by the staff of Funeral Partners Ltd when commenting on an advert for The Cooperative Funeralcare, none of us can make the connection?

  6. Charles

    and so out there in ‘Funeralcare land’………………..

    it’s very much biz as usual………………………………….

    and in the meantime, some of us, remain constantly patient awaiting a reply from those at the top to last year’s televised debacle

    yes, I know, I really have to shape up and start being a realist

    andrew

  7. Charles

    Afternoon Andrew,

    Out of interest exactly what sort of reply are you waiting for? One to you personally? To the readers of these blogs? To the NAFD? To the staff of Funeralcare? The public in general? What would be satisfactory? I do not mean to be difficult, I am genuinely interested to know because the matter is raised fairly often, not of course just by you.

    Your earlier comment about the cost of advertising being built into the cost of their funerals was interesting. The cost of advertising for any funeral director large or small has to come from somewhere, if not from their income then from where?

    I appreciate that whether it is expensive is a matter of opinion but television advertising is lot less expensive than it used to be since the proliferation of channels and the spread of the web. Interestingly two family owned funeral directors local to us have been advertising on television, possibly in response to the Funeralcare adverts.

    I think the advert is good and benefits the profession as a whole, whether from the point of view of creating discussion amongst the publc and funeral directors. Plus it is likely that all funeral directors, regardless of ownership will have more enquiries when it is shown. It is certainly far more positive for us all than any televised debacle.

    I wonder if the FD behind the advert was not Funeralcare but a GFG recommended FD would the posts above be so negative?

  8. Charles

    If TV advertising is the future – perhaps we will end up following the American model – funeral director Ads urging the public to switch funeral directors if they bought a plan and subsequently ‘went off’ the nominated FD? Change of ownership also seems to be a motivator.

    As for the NAFD response to the TV documentaries, the latest NAFD magazine says their investigation is still ongoing. Hopefully some kind of formal comment will eventually be made? I think many members around the country will demand it.

  9. Charles

    I find that most of the families I work with think traditional is the way to go. That is until you offer them something different. I suggest it’s funeral directors who need to change and offer a bit more than we are used to. I say good on the coop this time.

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