After reporting Q4 2009 earnings to the tune of $955 million yesterday, new NBC Universal parent Comcast perhaps got a little too drunk on its newfound power and announced that it plans to change the name of its cable TV, Internet and phone services to XFinity.
We can spend hours theorizing the inspiration for the rebranding, but let’s let Comcast EVP, operations David Watson explain things on the company blog:
“XFINITY represents the future of our company and it’s a promise to customers that we’ll keep innovating. When we launch XFINITY in a market, we’ll rebrand our products: XFINITY TV, XFINITY Voice and XFINITY Internet (our company, of course, remains Comcast). This transition is already well underway across the country. [On February 12], XFINITY will roll out in 11 markets including: Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington D.C., Chicago, Portland, Seattle, Hartford, Augusta, Chattanooga, parts of the Bay Area and San Francisco, with more markets to come later this year.”
Why are we reminded of the Howard Dean speech all of a sudden? According to one “enraged” spy, all XFinity “brings to mind at the moment is an Axe-fogged Buzz Lightyear participating in a skateboarding competition whilst simultaneously guzzling Mountain Dew and crushing on Hannah Montana.” Alrighty then.
In the meantime, we’re checking with Comcast agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners to possibly get more info on the name change. Stay tuned..
Update: A Comcast rep has confirmed to us that the company worked with Goodby, Siegel+Gale and other agencies on this effort.
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