Cox Gigablast Commercials

[u50254082]

Maybe I'm too techy to not notice it, but what they portray in the commercials has literally nothing to do with high bandwidth internet. If anything, they all seem to be more about computing power.

If you don't recall, the commercials are...

1. The kid who talks about making 3d printed food.
2. The little mute kid that starts drawing shapes in the air
3. The grandfather dancing with his grandchild while wearing bionic legs.

I guess from an advertising perspective, the commercials are a hit with me because they annoyed me enough to write about them..

[baralheia]

Yeah, that's been annoying the crap out of me too :P

[jerrywall]

It doesn't bother me as much... cause I get what they're saying. As technology improves and new advancements are made, there will be higher demands on the internet, so they're claiming gigablast is "future proof" to be ready to work with the new technologies. It is weird that their commercials seem to be spending more time promoting potential new technologies and not services they offer, but it's hard to make faster internet sound sexy to the average person. For those of us in the know, they don't need to sell us on it. If either gigablast or AT&T gigapower (or google fiber) was available to me, I'd be signed up yesterday.

[barrettd]

The biggest problem for me with their commercials is constantly promoting something that isn't available to the majority of subscribers in the area. If Cox had gigablast service in my area, I'd probably sign up, even though it isn't Google Fiber.

[jerrywall]

I hear ya. AT&T shows Gigapower available in Edmond, but I've yet to find someone who's in a service area. I've even asked at one of the corporate stores, and they claim it's not in operation here yet.

[FighttheGoodFight]

Wait.. You guys don't 3D print your food? Jeez everyone needs to upgrade their internet. Thats all you need!

[jerrywall]

Funny side note... I've actually tried 3D printed pizza at a trade show.

[SoonerDave]

Maybe I'm too techy to not notice it, but what they portray in the commercials has literally nothing to do with high bandwidth internet. If anything, they all seem to be more about computing power.

If you don't recall, the commercials are...

1. The kid who talks about making 3d printed food.
2. The little mute kid that starts drawing shapes in the air
3. The grandfather dancing with his grandchild while wearing bionic legs.

I guess from an advertising perspective, the commercials are a hit with me because they annoyed me enough to write about them..

Agree completely. Even my completely non-technically-oriented wife makes this observation and is equally annoyed by these commercials.

[traxx]

Yeah, the stupidity that some advertisers have annoys me. I guess what's really annoying is that it does anything but promote what they're trying to sell me. And this had to have gone through several different people and levels and they all signed off on it. Are they all this stupid?

These commercials advertise it as some nebulous concept that can't be easily explained. But it's not. What's everyone's biggest problem with slow home internet? Buffering while streaming TV shows/movies, lag while playing video games, slow loading pages, slow downloads, buffering while watching YouTube, too many people in your house trying to use the internet all at the same time or a variety of different uses -- instagram, snapchat, twitter, web surfing, streaming, online food ordering etc. So make a commercial that addresses those issues that people actually deal with. How hard is that? I thought that up in a matter of seconds. That's info people can actually use instead of some soccer kid wanting to make 3D printed food to the music of a show tune.

[d-usa]

The main problem that Cox has is that for almost all that stuff, their "slow" internet really is fast enough.

You can have your kids and their entire football team in your house browsing Facebook and uploading instagram and snapchating the cheerleaders and your wifi/router will bottleneck long before your internet will. Your PC and router will cause more lag than your internet will for most people. Downloading games and movies is the slowest part of it, but we are still talking about minutes for movies.

The reality is that, IMO, there really is only one main reason for the really fast internet. And I don't think that Cox is going to address that reality in their commercials.

Although I would love to see a "Buy our internet so you can drop our cable" commercial from them.

[Thomas Vu]

I hear ya. AT&T shows Gigapower available in Edmond, but I've yet to find someone who's in a service area. I've even asked at one of the corporate stores, and they claim it's not in operation here yet.

I'm on NW 150th and rockwell and I just got gigapower

[barrettd]

I'm on NW 150th and rockwell and I just got gigapower

Can you share the details? Did you have to sign a contract, price, etc? And has it been good service?

[SoonerDave]

Yeah, that's been annoying the crap out of me too :P

It's an old advertising gimmick called "Glittering Generalities." If you're selling something mundane, or abstract, loosely associate it with something more grandiose and sell the grandiose. Unfortunately, it works.

[jerrywall]

I'm on NW 150th and rockwell and I just got gigapower

So still not Edmond... :P Even though that's just 7 miles down 150th from me.

[stile99]

The funny thing is, these types of commercials have been the norm since the internet started to be commercialized. It's even been parodied (I'm thinking specifically of Cable Guy) several times. "The future is now! Soon every American home will integrate their television, phone and computer. You'll be able to visit the Louvre on one channel, or watch female mud wrestling on another. You can do your shopping at home, or play Mortal Kombat with a friend in Vietnam. There's no end to the possibilities!" Here's a commercial from over 20 years ago, with the same nebulous promises. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJhRPBJPoO0

[jerrywall]

Tell me more about this mud wrestling....

[traxx]

It's an old advertising gimmick called "Glittering Generalities." If you're selling something mundane, or abstract, loosely associate it with something more grandiose and sell the grandiose. Unfortunately, it works.

Read this as Glittering Genitals.

You know, because nothing sells something better than sparkling balls.

[jerrywall]

[Thomas Vu]

Can you share the details? Did you have to sign a contract, price, etc? And has it been good service?

Year contract, $90, no hardware fee (ever), AT&T looks at my web data to sell me ads.

I figured they always did that anyway, at least I get the discount. It's $120 without. As for service they try to get 600+ on install, but I've only gotten that a handful of times. My upload remains anywhere from 600-900 while download is anywhere from 250-600