Recently, through repeated viewing of some commercials and a little independent research, I learned that Qwest has merged with CenturyLink. In the interest of full disclosure, I know very little about this merger aside from the commercials and internet snippets, but the commercials I’ve seen from Xfinity/Comcast (talk about a muddy rebranding) have piqued my interest.
Tragically, I’ve been unable to locate any of the actual commercials on the web. However, the commercials generally involve: (1) a customer standing in a music store/car dealership/electronics store; (2) pining for the Les Paul guitar/Ferrari/big screen TV; (3) and then being forced to accept a recorder/broken down lemon/13” black and white TV. The commercial then follows with a line closely resembling the following: “No one likes having decisions made for them. Don’t let Qwest pass you off to other companies like CenturyLink.”
These commercials hit me hard for a couple reasons. First, after watching the commercials, I assumed that Qwest was egregiously outsourcing its services to less qualified local companies “like” CenturyLink. I had no idea that Qwest was merging with CenturyLink. I actually was relatively shocked to find that out because I felt the “passing off” language was borderline deceptive in the context of a merger. Second, I found it interesting that in the commercials Xfinity was essentially comparing Qwest to the Les Paul guitar/Ferrari/big screen TV. I thought Xfinity was doing Qwest a favor by holding them out in that manner. Ultimately though, since the Qwest brand is disappearing, this probably wasn’t a huge concern for Xfinity.
In researching this post, it appears that Qwest and Xfinity (formerly Comcast) have been at each other’s throats for quite some time. It will be interesting to see if and when CenturyLink jumps into the fray.