Comcast livestreams 'paranormal investigation' on Twitter to promote Wi-Fi

Brief:

Comcast's Xfinity brand of broadband internet service yesterday hosted a live Halloween-themed event on Twitter that showcased the company's Wi-Fi service, per an announcement shared with Mobile Marketer. "Project Dead Zone" asked Twitter users to help a team of faux investigators navigate the Winchester Mystery House, a mansion in San Jose, California, with a history of paranormal activity.
Comcast equipped the 160-room house with a mesh Wi-Fi network that included the Xfinity Gigabit Internet service and six xFi Advanced Gateways and 36 xFi Pods. The company sought to demonstrate how its technology can prevent wireless "dead zones" with its home Wi-Fi offerings.
The live event followed Comcast's introduction of xFi Pods that plug into any electrical outlet and pair with xFi Wireless Gateways and the Xfinity xFi platform to provide seamless wireless coverage throughout a large space.

Strange activity detected at the Winchester Mystery House. Join the live paranormal investigation now. #ProjectDeadZone https://t.co/cDrcpevMt9 pic.twitter.com/OYBYRYVRzH
— Xfinity (@Xfinity) October 17, 2018

Insight:

Comcast's livestreamed "Project Dead Zone" event was a creative and festive way to engage Twitter users in a staged paranormal investigation while driving home the capabilities of Xfinity's Wi-Fi services. The landmark Winchester Mystery House, originally built in 1884 by the widow of the famous maker of firearms, made a great setting for a Wi-Fi demonstration, given the mansion's confusing network of hallways and staircases, some of which lead nowhere.

It's not known how many people watched the event, but social influencers on YouTube and Instagram received thousands of likes from their announced plans to watch the livestream. This comes as Twitter places increasingly greater emphasis on video over the past year as a way to keep people on the platform amid flat user growth. Twitter last month changed its format to put live video streams and broadcasts at the top of user timelines, making it easier to discover and access the content in real time on mobile screens.

While "Project Dead Zone" highlighted Xfinity's home Wi-Fi service, the company also is making in-roads into cellular service as a mobile virtual network operator that leases coverage and bandwidth from Verizon. Xfinity Mobile added 204,000 subscribers in Q2 2018 to bring its total to 781,000 lines, per a Comcast announcement. Comcast sells Xfinity Mobile to its existing wired internet and pay-TV customers, limiting its potential audience compared to carriers like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, which each have millions of subscribers.