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Previous: Sign with sharp edges | Main | Next: Hotel toilet
June 30, 2006 12:19 PM
Broken: Comcast branding
On the Good Experience blog: Study in Comcast branding.
(Includes the video of the Comcast service tech sleeping on the couch.)
I have a casual standing boycott on any food product whose name or marketing incorporates a word ending in "licious", except where "licious" is preceeded only by "de". I suppose I could extend that to "astic" and "fan" in a similar fashion, not that I have to deal with Comcast around here.
Glenn Lasher, your dislike of "licious" made me think of another such fake word-addition that irritates me... "thon." Not used in marketing, but I've gotten sick of "thon" being used to signify an event where something is done a lot, usually to raise money. There are too many like this, and it can be used for almost anything: Walkathon, Singathon, Guitarathon, Rideathon, Skateathon, Hulathon, etc... I've seen some pretty ridiculous ones in this vein.
Dude... that's what the English language is all about. It's not elegant, like Japanese, it's not as usefull for poetic expression as French.. what it's good at is making new words to describe anything and everything.
Take a prefix, any prefix. I'll randomly pick "anti-". Now pick a rootword. Again randomly, I'll pick "pickle". Now pick a suffix. In this case. "cision". I now have a new word. "Antipicklecision". What does it mean? "Against the cutting of pickles". Our language is MADE to be modified. I don't see much of a reason to complain when people do so.
Now, about Comcast? Cable companies all have horrible reps, don't they? The only real thing they have going for them is that you can't really choose your cable company.
The first -thon I seen was in marketing: Sellathon.
After that, I've seen non-marketing -thons:
Praiseathon, sprayathon, buildathon, etc.
This language has been modi-fried more than could be counted. Baked, Roasted, Toasted, Microwaved, You take your pick, it's happened.
Back on topic.
Those Comcast commercials are just plain... Dumb!
Like any other promo. What posesses companies to promote their products/services in the funkiest ways possible? I even wonder what it has to do with what's being promoted?
WiglyWorm, I'm not against prefixes and suffixes. I love words like "antipicklecision." I completely agree that that's one of the major bonuses of the English language. There's just something about "thon" that irritates me specifically.
"At least the bad customer service people aren't bashing through the walls like that. Heh."
Yeah, ROFL!!!
It's bad enough they're going to sleep on the couch anyway, afterwards...lol!
I have just one question: How do we know that the bad costumer experience video is legit?
It is true that the person who made it probably had a broken experience, thus prompting the video, but how do we know that the video isn't exaggerating?
Also, it's entirely possibly that it was made just for the heck of it ("I bet you can't make a big company look bad!" "Just watch me!").
Comments on this entry are closed
Previous: Sign with sharp edges | Main | Next: Hotel toilet
First?
Anyway, Comcast should do something like showing a GOOD customer experience in their commercials rather than centering it around the phrase "It's Comcastic." What does COMCASTIC mean anyway??? BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE???
Posted by: Wowiimimpressed at June 30, 2006 01:49 PM