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from: Telecom Web

We've been seeing much of this Verizon Fios paraphernalia in NYC too, even balloons.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006
TPR's Frank Barbetta: Change of Venue

We hear almost half (nearly 47 percent) of all American food dollars are spent away from home; apparently the marketeers at Verizon Communications have heard this too. A recent promotion campaign for its emerging FiOS network television services in Virginia’s Arlington County - sometimes drifting into Maryland or the District of Columbia - seems to include some unconventional advertising atop the company’s traditional mass media outlets. Leveraging our culinary favorites, Verizon’s ads and promos for FiOS TV are appearing on beverage coasters, coffee containers, pizza boxes and Chinese food take-out bags. And if you make a mess eating or drinking, you can check out some dry cleaning bags with the Verizon messages also.

Some folks are particularly amused by the coasters, especially the trendy cocktail lounge varieties. “Let’s go back to my place and watch TV. No Really. Grab the light. Verizon FiOS TV is here,” says one side. And the flip side: “Sure, I believe in love at first sight. Have you seen my FiOS TV? Introducing fiber-optic TV from Verizon. Grab the light.” Hey, that's not so funny says the Broadband Everywhere Coalition, which - with cableco backing - has been seeking codified build-out and non-discrimination requirements on telco-provided Internet Protocol TV entry via the proposed federal video franchise legislation in Congress.

The group wanted to make a Capitol Hill issue of the FiOS coasters inadvertently appearing in some Washington, D.C, watering holes, even though Verizon doesn’t yet offer the service in the city. E. Faye Williams, Broadband Everywhere board member and chair of the National Congress of Black Women, issued a statement: "Unconscious errors are sometimes the most revealing. This is one of those Alice in Wonderland moments, where a large telephone monopoly, in seeking to brandish its wares for lawmakers, unwittingly and clumsily validates the case made by its critics. Verizon will spend money on advertising coasters in the District, on lobbying lawmakers for favors in the District, on just about everything except bringing its fiber network into the District. The fact that the company would advertise a service in the same District it is apparently redlining speaks volumes."

But Harry Mitchell, a communications director for Verizon’s mid-Atlantic bureau, laughed off any linkage between policy persuasions, coasters as lobby devices and perhaps overly-enthusiastic marketing people making their way into Washington bars with the disposable ads. He dismissed the Broadband Everywhere remarks as “acts of desperation” and took exception to hints about alleged Verizon redlining. Baseless allegations, he said, invalid arguments.