Comcast, the nation's largest cable operator with 23.6 million customers, is launching a massive re-branding campaign next week to reflect the changing technological and consumer landscape, attaching the Xfinity name to its entire product line and platforms.
Starting next week, Comcast will begin rolling out the new Xfinity brand -- Xfinity TV, Xfinity Internet and Xfinity Voice -- to customers in 11 markets: Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Portland Ore., Seattle, Hartford, Conn., Augusta, Ga., Chattanooga, Tenn. and parts of the San Francisco Bay area. The change is reminiscent of a similar move that Cablevision Systems made several years ago, renaming all of its service under the Optimum brand, which proved highly successful.
Comcast plans an advertising blitz to get the word out to consumers in the respective markets next Friday, including TV ads during the Winter Olympic Games, print and radio spots. The company did not reveal how much the rebranding will cost.
Assisting Comcast in the rebranding efforts are New York ad firm Siegel & Gale, which developed the tru2Way campaign for the MSO, and San Francisco-based advertising giant Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, which developed Comcast's earlier "Comcastic" ad campaign.
Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts hinted at the move on a conference call with analysts to discuss fourth- quarter results Wednesday, adding that the brand would encompass "our robust technology platform, expanded services we are offering today and the future services we are planning to deliver."
Roberts said the brand change would be extended to most of Comcast's major markets by the end of the year. The company will retain the Comcast corporate name and it will still be featured, along with the Xfinity brand, on its service trucks and other areas.
"The important message to our customers is that Comcast is innovating in all our products across many platforms, giving these customers even more choice and control over the entertainment, communications and information they want," Roberts said on the conference call.
Comcast executive vice president of operations Dave Watson, in a blog posting said the decision to rebrand under the Xfinity name is a logical progression from Project Infinity, the company vision to give consumers the ability to view content on any device, anywhere and anytime first unveiled by Roberts in a keynote presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2008.
"I've been in the industry for 11 years and I've never seen change move as rapidly as it does today," Watson wrote. "It's hard to believe that we first launched VOD in 2003 and since then customers have viewed more than 14 billion movies, TV shows, music videos, etc. In 2004, the fastest Internet speeds were 6 Mbps. Now we're offering 50 Mbps in Xfinity markets, and those speeds will keep increasing to 100+ Mbps and even faster in the future."
In December, Comcast launched its "TV Everywhere" initiative -- Fancast Xfinity TV-- but didn't let on that it would involve the entire product line. The company will eventually drop the Fancast moniker from its TV Everywhere product, renaming it Xfinity.com. And more changes are likely to come as the product line expands.
"As entertainment continues to shift from the living room to ‘anytime, anywhere,' we'll continue to dramatically evolve all of our products under the Xfinity brand," Watson said in his blog posting. "While I can't predict the future, I do know one thing for sure: this is the just the beginning."
Comcast plans an advertising blitz to get the word out to consumers in the respective markets next Friday, including TV ads during the Winter Olympic Games, print and radio spots. The company did not reveal how much the rebranding will cost.
