On Superbowl Sunday, Verizon aired a 60-second ad highlighting its 5G technology while honoring first responders. The ad starts out mentioning how 5G would help first responders and then shifts to saying “But this isn’t a commercial about what 5G will do. It’s about what 5G will never do.” It then showed images that highlighted the courage, risk, dedication, and sacrifices of our first responders. It seemed like the right combination that gives the viewers the warm and fuzzies that will last. It was effective on the surface.
Unfortunately for Verizon, many of its viewers have a long memory. Many have not forgotten the incident during the 2018 Mendocino Fires during which the company throttled the Santa Clara County Fire Department’s “unlimited” high-speed internet while the fire department battled the largest fire in California’s history. The backlash was fierce. A quick search under “Verizon Commercial” on Twitter revealed scathing responses. “A Superbowl commercial isn’t gonna make us forget that”, one of the tweets said.
According to an article by CBS news, the Santa Clara County Fire Chief, Anthony Bowden, said Verizon throttled their services to a crawling 1/200th of its original data plan. In the same article, Verizon admitted that they made a mistake in the way they handled communication with their customer.
What seems to be an effort to make peace and bring honor to first responders became a scathing memory of the company’s disregard for public safety. “#Verizon: The network more people rely on … until California is ravaged by wildfires and your provider decides to throttle the connectivity of those firefighters you just honored with that Superbowl commercial. **exploitive** you VZ.” said @LeviRobischon.
This goes to show that good intentions of corporations are not always received well by its viewers. They say it’s impossible to please everyone and this ad is certainly an example of that.
Picchi, A. (2018, August 22). Verizon throttled firefighters’ “unlimited” data during California fires, lawsuit claims. Retrieved from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/verizon-throttled-firefighters-unlimited-data-during-california-fires-lawsuit/
Lam, K. (2019, February 10). Verizon Super Bowl ads honor California firefighters after accidentally throttling data speeds. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/02/03/verizon-super-bowl-ads-honor-california-firefighters-after-controversy/2765137002/
@colhoneypots. Feb 2, 2020. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/colhoneypots/status/1224135641702600705?s=12
@LeviRobischon, Feb 2, 2020. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/LeviRobischon/status/1224135440392785920?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
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