Requisite Super Bowl Reflections

I had intended to just ignore the whole Super Bowl commercial buzz and not add to all the noise that we all make over and over again like records on repeat, but I've caved. You got me.

Loved it:

Teleflora- "No one likes to see you naked." Placement packed a punch with a strong male audience and close proximity to Valentine's Day. SO awesome.

Cash4Gold- I had NO idea they could possibly have a Super Bowl budget, not to mention actually get MC Hammer and Ed McMahon--"Goodbye old friend..."

Monkeys! Too bad the Castrol ad was otherwise forgettable. I still liked it for the adorable kiss.

Hang in there, Jack- I usually hate JitB ads, but I LOVED this. Hilarious, and I actually want to go to the website now. 

Doritos- Can't explain why, but I enjoyed the snow globe spot. Crotch joke meh, but whatever.

NFL/Sprint Mobile "football season never ends" spot- AWESOME communication of the value, and reward, of having Sprint mobile all year. Beautiful AND strategic. I would have liked it even if it hadn't been strategically strong. Sprint mobile ad at the beginning was really beautiful too, when it opened up into a stadium--really loved it.

Denny's- Ok, I hated the one that's been showing recently when they're talking about hard times, but I loved the new spot with our mobster trio. And what a great call to action, getting people in for a free grand slam on Tuesday? Perfect. Cheers to GSP for that one.

Coke Zero- New Mean Joe Green spot was GREAT, and it finally starts tying all the Coke Zero advertising efforts together. Hey Pepsi! This is how you REFRESH, not by showing people dancing in the 50's. For more on Pepsi, check out Reflushed from my man Anthony.

Career Builder- Just the right amount of crazy--DEFINITELY memorable.

Disappointing:

Bud Light w/ Conan- How can you mess up with Conan?

G- Meh. I haven't been big on the campaign in general, though.

Go Daddy- This idea is so tired...

Comcast Fastest Speed Ever- I get that its trying to be just ridiculous, but it's still boring.

Captain Morgan apparently offered to donate $ to charity every time one of the players did the Cap't Morgan stand. I didn't see it happen a single time. No buzz about it either. Eek.

Cars.com- They could have gone ANYWHERE with this (including launching a new Wes Anderson flick) but they totally killed it with a lame ending.

Sobe- Sorry but this was boring, and I couldn't quite tell if it was supposed to be in 3D or not. The glasses didn't do anything, but the picture otherwise looked like crap.

Coke avatars- "Ooo! New* technology! There's an ad in that!" Nope. 

*Right.

Vizio- poorly produced, really boring, and actually had tech stats on the screen. If someone understood those stats, they wouldn't be considering a value tv like a Vizio. (That said, I have a Vizio and I LOVE it, and apparently their site had more traffic than it could handle)

In general, they just weren't enough to interest me. I still found myself getting up to help with the food, grab a drink, or talk to everyone, and I was actively taking NOTES on the commercials. That's bad.

I expected more from the Super Bowl. Now to find out if consumers did too, or if I'm being overly critical.

Comcast lives out its digital media relationships

After my slight tirade Tuesday night and a whole 'lotta back and forth on Twitter with ComcastCares, I popped into bed crossing my fingers that something would come from all of it. The next morning I got a call from Rebecca at Customer Service who I just called back today. She was extremely forthcoming and kind, empathized with my frustration, and gave me 50% off my bill for the month when I asked. Heck of a lot better than the woman who reluctantly offered me a pay-per-view coupon. Shortly after she called yesterday I also got a call from George, who will be coming out on Saturday to get things fixed up. Pleased by the follow-through.

So the question remains. Are they making changes in their traditional communication lines or did I only get a call from the team dedicated to social/digital media? I would love to see Comcast take this online so as to avoid sitting on hold completely, and while I did try to do a live chat, it did not prove as easily as I had hoped it would be. I gotta say though, I won't be calling Comcast if I can help it. I'll be tweeting.

A quick note on treating your consumers with respect

Though this ties into a larger topic I'd like to discuss another time about meaningful brand communication, I noticed a strange instance of a brand missing the mark with their consumers.

Today I called Comcast for the 5th time in 2 weeks because my On Demand wasn't working. Again. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. But I immediately explained my frustration at having gone through this so many times and that "On Demand" doesn't really count if it's "On Demand in an hour after you call us and we send signals and you unplug your box and lose all the channel information." Ok, end rant. I am just surprised and disappointed that there's validity to everyone hating Comcast. 

Anyhow, the calls always included a fair bit of hold time, and today after I got a rep, I ended up on hold for another 20 minutes. Not a big deal because all I had to do tonight was clean, but as soon as they put me on hold, I got a message saying something to the effect of "Want to pay less for your home phone line? (Insert here a hard sell for Comcast Digital Voice) Ask your customer representative today!" Ok, I understand using a phone call as an opportunity to sell, seeing as people use that same line to set up new accounts, change accounts, etc. But for those of us who were calling because the service is consistently failing, the hard sell is sure to bring a grimace. Because it came after my specific choices of equipment or service not working for my cable account, I expected them to be a bit more humble and not use the fact that I'm frustrated on hold as an opportunity to get me to invest more in Comcast.

On the flip side, I reached out to ComcastCares on Twitter and got an immediate response, and he realized I needed a technician, not to just unplug and replug my box. He then went on to set up an appointment for me. 

That's how you do it, folks. Not hard-selling me when I'm stuck wasting my minutes on hold with you. 

EDIT: I got a call this morning from Comcast saying that they had seen my blog and that they'd like me to give them a call. Why is it that Comcast is doing GREAT on the digital media front but not in their traditional infrastructure??

A New Communications Model- Consumers are Changing the Conversation

In September I attended the Deepspace presentation on Modern Brand Building, where I heard from Paul Isakson, Adrian Ho, and Dion Hughes. During the presentations they each presented a number of different metaphors for brands and brand communications. But during the presentation a different idea came to me--a revised communication model, to reflect the way consumers communicate in this media environment.

I realized that oftentimes, we assume that the consumer is going to give us--the senders--feedback, when instead they're much more likely to share their thoughts with others, both good and bad. 

(Red lines are the traditional way, blue lines replace the bottom red line--these blue lines of communications result in WOM, blogging, Twitter posts, Facebook fan pages, etc)

Windo recently made mention here of these conversations, calling them "me-casting." He noted that these communicators may be influencers if brands come check out what these consumers are saying, but that's just the thing. I think that brands need to make an effort to seek out these opinions, and not just by giving them a place to share them. They're striking up these conversations with their friends, their peers, their co-workers and family. Comcast actually figured this one out and opened their ComcastCares Twitter account. I've personally benefitted from it and think it's pretty kickass.

Like I've said, I typically don't like brand metaphors and limiting models like these, but I think this added friction point needs to be added to the conversation around communication.