We shall overcome

My apologies to Martin Luther King, Jr., but some advertisers have to work to overcome any bad feelings customers have about them. Comcast is a case in point. There are Comcast customers out there who have had a less than positive experience. In fact, Comcast has a pretty bad perception to overcome. Some of their commercials are rather funny…the one with the Slowskys, the family of turtles who prefer DSL because its slow, for instance. But does the humor help overcome the negativity? This is when the product has to live up to the advertising. Same with Verizon. I happen to like the Verizon Wireless ads–you know, “it’s the network.” And Verizon indeed has the network, but it is plagued by similar customer service problems to Comcast. So in the end, the commercials help to bring in people that don’t already have an opinion, but when a STRONG and/or NEGATIVE opinion exists, no amount of funny and/or clever advertising is going to help. I am sure there are many other examples of companies that have great advertising, but negative public perception.