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Previous: PC ad | Main | Next: Blockbuster tagline
January 10, 2005 12:01 AM
Broken: Advertising flyer
Victor Zeiser sends in a strangely-worded flyer from Comcast. The ad promises "high speed" and "higher value", then says "That was then. This is Comcast."
Sounds more like they are saying "That was good, now we're better." I don't see anything wrong here.
Granted, that's what the creators intended, Jim King, but when read front-to-back, 'standard' style, it comes off with quite the opposite meaning.
Think "High-Def. High-Speed. Higher value... That was then. This is Comcast."
The flyer is poorly worded and designed. But since it really has no effect on its "usabilty" by the final consumer, I really don't know if we can consider it in the "broken" category.
Gotta disagree, sam. The "consumer" of this advert is Comcast -- they're the ones who paid for it! Whoever designed the ad made Comcast look foolish at the very least, and adversely impacted their sales at worst. Broken -- and pretty darn funny, too!
Yea, I got the broken part, and I disagree with all of you that say it is not broken. It was quite a blooper for Comcast, good thing I have Adelphia!
Comcast is going to have to do a lot better than advertising if they want me to subscribe after they cut-off 20,000 people in this area without explaination or warning. Great, an ISP where your service can be cut at any time for no reason... sign me up!
Anyway, I have slower DSL and satellite TV for the sole purpose of avoiding Comcast's "service."
The worst part to me is that they claim they're not a monopoly... yeah right! My choice is Comcast or... move to another house. Not a monopoly my ass...
Certainly, we can agree that for at least some people, the logic in Comcast’s ad “was broken.” Here’s a personal story about my customer-experience with Comcast, with some commentary that might be of interest. I had a Comcast nightmare last year with their broadband Internet service and decided it was time to go ballistic, deluging the company’s management with letters. I was pretty surprised when I received a personal call from the VP who heads up their New England area. He was deeply apologetic and intent on resolving my issue and “making me feel whole.” The only other time I received this kind of response out of the roughly 20 complaint rampages I’ve gone on over the last fifteen years was when I went nuts on FedEx after they screwed up an important shipment and practically insulted me when I called, first, to find out what had happened, and, second, to complain. I sent a letter to CEO Fred Smith, which I figured would be routed to anyone but him. I was shocked when he called—like the call I got from Kevin Casey, Comcast’s VP in charge of New England. Since I research, teach and write for a living, often on service-quality topics—and was highly skeptical about his claim that Comcast is working hard to transform the quality of its service (especially that they are making good progress)—I took him up on his offer to visit the company and check things out. Turns out that over the past year or so, they have in fact made considerable progress in improving their service, reflected in sharp increases in customer satisfaction (in New England region, anyway). Of course, they were starting from a pretty dismal base, so any progress would look good! Logically, though, Comcast has no choice but to at least try to improve their service and customers’ perception of it. They are facing incredible competitive heat. I digress here, but I’ve had a major cup of coffee and am rolling—and don’t want to work on the other stuff on my to-do list). So, in the words of Jimmy Page, “Ramble on!” In my view, Comcast’s business is going to become one of the most competitive on earth. Verizon and SBC, the two phone-company goliaths, have stated that they are going to install fiber-optic cable into the home, which, if they follow through, will create huge digital input pipes and many possibilities—all of which are bad news for cable companies. The Dish and DirecTV are aggressively marketing their satellite services, bundled with DSL from phone-company partners. Competing cable companies exist in practically every market—RCN in mine. Numerous electric utilities are offering broadband Internet over their networks (and it seems to work!). Even some communities are installing publicly owned cable “overbuilds.” Particularly in view of the negative image so many of us have of “the cable company”—whichever one it happens to be--and Comcast’s announcement in yesterday’s WSJ that they are going into VOIP telephone service big time, they have no choice but to pull out all the stops to get their service out of the slow lane. Otherwise, (a) they will have a tough time signing up customers for their Internet phone service—“I’m not going to trust my lifeline to some new technology, especially from the cable company!” and (b) they will die a death by a thousand cuts as they lose their customers, one by one.
End of epistle.
News flash: If you post long rants, but decide to use linebreaks, people like me will actually bother to read what you've written.
The slogan "that was then, this is comcast" is coming from their T.V. adds.
It has clips of people having massive amounts of trouble with their internet.
Then they say "that was then, this is comcast" and show a comcast person here to save the day with high speed internet.
Of course, the effect is somewhat ruined when they print it on the flier like that.
After a first hand experience with "this is Comcast" I've got to say that I haven't noticed any improvement.
I'm staying at my mom's and the last few months her cable internet has been anything but "high speed." In fact, it usually underperforms dial up service. So, long story short we called to have a repair tech come by. We scheduled one of their typical day ruining appointment blocks, 1pm-5pm. 4:45 rolls around with no word from the tech, so I called to check the status, see if they had an estimate of how much more of my day was going down the drain... The rep told me I should wait until 5:30 because she could only tell that the tech was still "in the field" but had no info as to when he might arrive.
Finally at 5:25 he knocks on the door and asks if we're still having a problem. I think he has severly overestimated his magical tech support prowess and tell him that yes, we are still having problems. He tells me that a test from outside the house showed no problems. I advised him that we don't generally use the internet connection outside of the house and told him I'd like him to come in and check the connection that we use. He reluctantly agrees to TURN OFF HIS TRUCK and come inside. Yes, that's right, I waited for 5 1/2 hours and he can be bothered to shut off the damn truck, assuming that I called and waisted my day for fun...
That was then and it doesn't feel all that different from now... argh.
High Def, High Speed, Higher Value.
That was then... This is Comcast...
If THEN was something other than Comcast, then Comcast = Low Def, Low Speed, Lower Value???
I agree with the first comment. I had their software, which I downloaded from their website, tell me that it couldn't find my network card. Yes, the same card that I used to get the software.
Any ISP that forces you to use their software unnecessarily is absolutely broken. I sent their cable modem back immediately.
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Previous: PC ad | Main | Next: Blockbuster tagline
Then it's not broken, but perfectly honest. :)
Posted by: Grey Hodge at January 10, 2005 05:04 AM