IP Democracy: Verizon is Getting Pretty Good at Public Relations 2.0
Broadband service company and telco TV provider Verizon plans to launch a web-based reality TV show [correction: The show will be available online but will initially air on TV stations in the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh markets as well as FiOS TV on-demand] called “My Home 2.0” with the goal of showing families how they can “realize the full potential of technology to improve their lives.” Modeled on the popular TV shows “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” and “Mythbusters,” each program will take a “technology-challenged” family and retrofit them with the latest technology, home networking and gaming gear, while also, not incidentally, plugging them into Verizon’s FiOS Internet and TV services.
The show launches on September 12 with a Bucks County, PA family and will later feature at least two other Southeastern Pennsylvania families. The program will then move on to families in Pittsburgh.
This web video series makes no pretense at being unbiased, at least as far as broadband and Internet services go. It’s a product pitch for FiOS, but a clever one. Presumably the Verizon-produced episodes will impart other useful information to the millions of “technology-challenged” households out there, while selling the features of FiOS.
What’s interesting is that the cable industry, Verizon’s biggest competitor, has nothing nearly as sophisticated a video pitch that “My Home 2.0” sounds like it will be, even though cable is arguably more video-centric and better equipped to mount faux TV shows. Verizon, on the other hand, is facing an uphill battle to steal video customers away from incumbent cable and satellite providers, so the telco is obviously getting feisty.
Another example of Verizon’s “real world” video marketing moxie is a field trial the telco is conducting with a few employees who are experimenting with 100 Mbps connections. Verizon has spotlighted one employee’s experience with that drool-worthy but untested level of throughput.
Verizon has posted YouTube videos featuring the employee, has blogged about it on its own policy blog and even has gone as far as getting Om Malik to interview the employee. That’s what you call PR 2.0.
Again, despite a lot of hoopla over Comcast CEO Brian Robert’s demo of super-fast wideband cable modems at this year’s annual NCTA show, I haven’t seen Verizon’s main rivals promote their plans to offer blazing fast broadband service in quite the same way Verizon has.
In fact, I see little in the way of online video, blogging or other new communications activity on the part of the cable industry at all. In the meantime, Verizon is getting pretty good at this whole new PR 2.0 thing.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on September 5, 2007 11:12 AM to IP Democracy