Faux Social Media: Another Giant Corporation Fizzles in Web 2.0

AT&T is rolling out their U-verse product in select markets. The product allows people to get television over the Internet (along with high speed service). Now the potential for that is interesting, although as cable companies such as Time Warner Cable and Comcast have improved their service offerings and their service over the years, the argument for change is not a clear one.

To promote U-verse in Norwalk, CT, AT&T has a campaign under which they supposedly award free U-verse for a year to go named, conveniently enough, Bobby Choice. Get it, you have a choice. Uh yeah... They've put a bunch of videos on YouTube. Here's one.



Ok, so did that nauseate anyone else? We discovered it here in the office off of YouTube, and we immediately agreed that it was fake and cheezy. So why pretend that it's real? To AT&T's credit, they've admitted in the media that it's a campaign. But why pretend he's "won" this service? It deflates it, it minimizes it. He could've been just a funny spokesperson.

Ironically, in some ways it's better more in-depth information than is on the rest of the U-verse website, but the whole "faux social media" attempt just feels like another Wal-mart like mistake by a big company trying to understand the new rules of marketing.