Comcast Ads Featuring Shaquille O'Neal, Ben Stein Create Buzz

Stein, O'Neal Spoof "Starsky & Hutch" In New Comcast Ad, Set To Debut Aug. 3

Comcast's ad campaign featuring Cavaliers C Shaquille O’Neal and comedian Ben Stein is creating "surprising buzz," and Comcast Senior VP/Advertising Peter Intermaggio said that it "has led to sales gains" for the company's cable-TV service, according to Bob Fernandez of the PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER. The campaign is a "variation on the 1980s buddy cop movies 'Beverly Hills Cop' and 'Lethal Weapon.'" Intermaggio said that the campaign was "conceived earlier this year" with assistance from N.Y.-based agency Digitas. The idea was to have a "dialogue between two celebrity opposites about Comcast's cable-TV service," with one celebrity focusing on "entertainment and the other on promotional prices." The first TV spot "introduced the handcuffed O'Neal and Stein in late April entering a minicar and playing basketball." The current "Locked and Loaded" ad has a "western theme, in the vein of the movie comedy 'Blazing Saddles.'" In another ad, which will premier nationwide August 3, O'Neal "dons an afro and bell bottoms and spoofs 'Starsky & Hutch,' with droll sidekick Ben Stein in a trench coat." Fernandez writes the new ad "should be a slam dunk for Comcast, which has a success on its hands with Shaq N' Stein" (PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, 7/15).