VideOcaskets featuring IBM Corp-manufactured display units Thursday entered the first of 10 Forest Lawn cemetaries in Atlanta, according to VideOcasket Inc, Hesh Wiener reports from New York. The new units are the first installation of the units IBM agreed to manufacture as part of the strategic alliance that VideOcasket and IBM formed last summer. Each new Forest Lawn installation will have 150 VideOcaskets. All 10 Forest Lawn sites will be operational by mid-April. These new cemetaries are in addition to the original 13 Atlanta Forest Lawns that began offering the VideOcasket service early last summer, bringing the total number of Atlanta mortuaries to 23. When the installation is complete, VideOcasket will reach almost 40% of Atlanta Forest Lawn mourners. VideOcasket is rolling out a nationwide electronic network for delivery of marketing messages to intelligent display screens on coffins and gravestones. VideOcasket plans to use the IBM Information Network for delivery of data and messages to and from the cemetary. The IBM alliance will help VideOcasket accelerate its nationwide expansion while providing manufacturing cost efficiencies, the company says. The VideOcasket network displays animated messages on a computerised display attached to an ordinary tombstone or casket. As a pallbearer pushes the casket through the funeral service, the VideOcasket display screen delivers customer service, advertising and sales promotion messages in response to strategically-located triggering devices. Since the message content is software-driven from a central location, messages can be targeted at the bereaved based on a wide variety of marketing criteria, giving insurers, inheritance lawyers, matchmakers specialising in second spouses, liquor vendors and travel agents previously unheard of micromarketing capabilities. VideOcaskets are made by VideOcasket Inc, Chicago.
