Case Study: Power of the Internet

Eleven months ago columnist (and a host of NPR's On The Media) Bob Garfield had a customer service nightmare experience with Comcast (one of the communications "options" hereabouts, too) and in frustration he launched the website and blog comcastmustdie.com.

Here's Garfield, interviewed last December by OTM co-host Brooke Gladstone in which he says he's trying to start an e-surrection. And an e-surrection it became. (It's also interesting to hear a jounalist the target of an interview.)

This morning brother Bob declares victory (damn near) in his AdAge column.

Garfield's blog and website became a downhill snowball of hundreds of people with customer beefs that made Comcast perk up and listen. "We get it," says Comcast corporate spokeswoman Jenni Moyer. "And not only do we get it, we're not just listening. We're also changing the way we do things. And we're moving from being reactive to proactive."

I hope that this will be a Case Study in every media, public relations and communications studies text published in the next 10 years.

Truth Well Told

... is McCann-Erickson's banner, but this time it's Grey/New York that's got it right.

Bob Garfield,* longtime ad critic for Advertising Age magazine and AdAge.com, usually gets it right, too. Advertising he hates, he hates with wit and passion making his column always fun to read. But unlike so many critics who fawn and preen over things they like, Garfield attacks his likes with wit and passion, as well.

Today he likes Grey's TV spot for Captain Morgan Spiced Rum, and especially likes how the spot tip-toes through the ethical minefield of "drink responsibly" by telling the truth about drinking and responsibility, linking a product insight (some will drink too much) with consumer insight (some will be responsible with panache).

The ad hits The Sweet Spot - see blog post for 7/13/08.

* Garfield is also co-host of National Public Radio's On The Media.

And I had to Google Pecksniffian, too.