Last week I wrote a post about my disdain for bad marketing. I had to vent about the nature of the marketing industry and the less than creative advertising being thrown into technology mediums. The other reason for the post was to research the active listening component of any marketing/communications department or company. More on this later…

One of my examples was Fandango.com. Fandango has an ad campaign built into the Comcast system where they deliver ads to you while you watching, reviewing, and searching for on-demand content. I had the opportunity of viewing a Fandango ad every single time I watched a movie review. It became annoying.

However… the story shifts focus when the CMO of Fandango posted a comment on my blog post. See below.

Granted… this feeds my narcissism and I would like to assume the Fandango team values my blog because I am the best person ever…. and have a massive following.. and I am a thought leader.

OMG.. blah blah blah…Not true..

It is simply that Fandango is listening and may actually care about what is being posted about their brand… whether about an ad built into the Comcast system or their website!

Ted Hong had no reason to know about the error in the frequency cap with Comcast. It is a small error in an otherwise huge ad campaign and structure. However, he has built a system to respond to negative comments (whether posted by him or not) and they speak human! I found a true marketer – a listener and a storyteller.

A couple of questions to ponder:

  1. Is this a Fandango problem or a Comcast problem?
  2. Should Comcast respond to my previous blog post? Do they have a reason to respond?
  3. Is there anyway to measure whether my opinion matters to the Fandango brand? Do they care? Should they care?
  4. How do you value a response on negative commentary? Is there an ROI model?
  5. Other thoughts and opinions?