"The Slowskys" are a national television advertising campaign for Comcast Cable's Xfinity broadband Internet service.[2] The ads feature an animatronic turtle couple, Bill and Karolyn Slowsky. The ads are based on the idea that DSL, which Xfinity claims is slower than their service, is only fast enough for people who like things very slow. In the television ads, the two turtles are usually shown together explaining why they are so happy with DSL service, and that if they got Xfinity, it would be far too fast for them.
The characters were created by Goodby Silverstein & Partners of San Francisco, produced by RSA, puppeteered by Stan Winston. The campaign won the gold Effie Award in 2007.[3] The puppeteered turtles were later turned into CGI turtles for the 2019 reboot.[4]
TheSlowskys.com was a character blog on which everything slow is celebrated. Recently however, the blog was taken down and replaced by a peaceful, permanent flash widget that included their commercials, downloads, and merch. Karolyn's blog was replaced with Karolyn's Korner for the flash widget.
In the 2013 ad series, this time targeted to Comcast Business, the Slowskys, Bill and Karolyn, have a diner filled with DSL Internet. This also introduced Kevin, one of the workers. It was a 2 commercial series.[5][6]
A knockoff of The Slowskys by Canadian cable provider Shaw Communications is called The Snailskis.[7] Another knockoff of The Slowskys is the No Shells Pistachios promotion which is similar to The Slowskys.[8]
In the 2011 ad series, A couple commercials compared Verizon Fios and AT&T Internet, and Qwest buying CenturyLink.[9] These were only aired on TV and shown on other portfolios.[10] There were also comic strips of the Slowskys during this period.[11][12]
Comedian Andrew Donnelly is the voice of Bill Slowsky and actress (and former member of The Groundlings) Rachael Harris provides the voice for Karolyn. Son Bill Slowsky, Jr. (featured in a reboot campaign starting in May 2019) is voiced by musician Lucas Grabeel.
When the Slowsky fad reached its peak, the Slowskys Website created a fictional campaign in which the Slowsky couple traveled around their block in an old fashioned political circuit. On top of their vehicle, multiple bullhorns would amplify the Slowsky's voices so that people could hear them. The advertising video showed the Slowskys in the vehicle, and with Bill screaming "BE STILL WITH BILL!", much to Karolyn's annoyance, with "Hail to the Chief" playing in the background.[13][14] The party even offered membership cards,[15] sold merchandise, and requested slogans for their platform.
In the 2019 ad series, in promotion for World Turtle Day, Bill Jr. reveals that he is a big fan of the speed and convenience offered by Xfinity and its service-related smartphone app, leading to his father ending each ad with blunt dismissals (such as "I'll pass" and "I'd rather not") of his son's impassioned advocacy for added speed. The official Xfinity Twitter account got taken over by Bill Slowsky Jr. on the same day.[16]
As of now, 1 commercial is lost, almost every single piece of Slowskys lost media has been found expect for Bill's Slow Learning series, a webseries only exclusive to the Slowskys website where Bill, reacts to learning activity videos. This was only seen for a few seconds in the demo reel for the website. The "Loading" commercial is still lost to this day.[17]
The entire Comcast Slowskys portfolio is on the Effie.com website, but you need a subscription or login to unlock some of the material.
References
edit- ^ Comcast Slowskys 2006 "Loading" Endtag, retrieved 2023-12-03, partially lost.
- ^ "Comcast tortoises deal with sudden fame". Adfreak.com. Retrieved 21 October 2010.
- ^ http://s3.amazonaws.com/effie_assets/2007/1897/2007_1897_pdf_1.pdf [bare URL PDF]
- ^ Lee, Brian "James". "Brian Lee's CG Demo Reel".
- ^ Comcast Business Internet TV Commercial, Slowskys Diner iSpot tv appleuniversal, 16 November 2014, retrieved 2023-12-03
- ^ Comcast Business Internet TV Spot, 'Slowskys', retrieved 2023-12-03
- ^ Shaw Communications Inc. - Snailskis: Say No To Slow with Shaw High-Speed Internet Archived 2007-08-24 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ You Ditch YOUR Shells, 29 October 2021, retrieved 2023-12-03
- ^ Post, Andy Vuong | The Denver (2011-04-01). "CenturyLink completes purchase of Qwest". The Denver Post. Retrieved 2023-12-05.
- ^ "Comcast - Slowskys". Matt McFaden. Retrieved 2023-12-03.
- ^ "Comic". PayLoad.
- ^ "Comic 2".
- ^ BE STILL WITH BILL! - YouTube
- ^ The Slow Party – pop
- ^ Slow Party Membership (PDF)
- ^ "Post". X (formerly Twitter). Retrieved 2023-12-03.
- ^ "Effie porfolio". Effie.
