The X-Men
X-Rays
The X-Factor
Generation X
X (the band for those of you who went to college in the eighties)
XTC (ditto)
Racer X (who, incidentally, was so much cooler than Speed Racer)
X marks the spot
And now…xfinity or XFINITY.
Let’s be honest. “X” is a cool letter. It denotes fantasy, sci-fi, endlessness, mystery, hip and cool, all wrapped up in a couple of crossed lines. Do I like it? Yeah, very much. But I must admit, at first I was a little confused. Was XFINITY a service offering being offered by Comcast, or is it a rebranding of the company itself? OK, Verizon has FiOS. Now, I think Comcast has xfinity, or XFINITY – as it is spelled both ways on the web site. It’s called a “service upgrade,” on the same site so that cleared up that issue.
So do I now have Comcast triple-play service, but not XFINITY? That’s what it would seem. XFINITY, it seems, is the first-class upgrade in the great triple-play, red-eye of life. SO I think what Big C is saying is, ” Yo, our regular service matches FiOS. But our new XFINITY service is off the hook, brah…”
Smart.
A brand position can make you or kill you. However, it’s not necessarily the brand itself, but the implementation of the brand, that can drag a company down. Like an old friend said, “the number one aspect of any brand is consistency.” Consistency of what…the service? The logo? While I agree that a service brand is a lot softer around the edges than many people think (think Accenture), there are firm rules.
I once spoke at a conference where an attendee asked me if I could define a brand. Sure, I said. A brand is a consistent physical and service-level representation of a product or service. So what is XFINITY’s consistent representation? Speed, speed and more speed, it would seem. At a price of course. And personally, I think they’ve nailed it.
Well done Comcast. I get a feeling the XFINITY brand will grow. Hopefully I’ll be able to stream reruns of the X-Files on you soon.
Tim Hermes is CEO at Broadband Gear Report. Email him at timhermes@broadbandgear.net.