The challenge was explaining why Xfinity home internet was better than the competition - without ever actually naming the competition.

Which is tricky in advertising. Because once you start talking about internet speeds, reliability, bandwidth, and Wi-Fi performance, the language can become technical. And if you’re also unclear why you’re getting all technical, the audience tunes out.

The solution, as usual, was comedy.

Smart, character-based comedy that could smuggle the product message into situations people actually enjoyed watching. The unmatched Jamie Cohen wrote scripts sharp enough and funny enough that audiences would stick around long enough to absorb what the campaign was really trying to say.

We brought in the gifted comedy director Clay Weiner, working with Biscuit Filmworks, to keep the dialogue fast and smart, and cast the simultaneously heightened yet completely natural Judy Greer as the character at the center of it all.

The spots were built around character. Slightly exaggerated people navigating recognizable frustrations, delivered with enough wit and self-awareness that the advertising never felt like homework.

We shot the campaign in Los Angeles over four tightly packed days and worked with editor Brian Sanford at Versus, whose sense of comedic rhythm helped shape the final tone as much as anything that happened on set. The brooding music came from Mitch and Scott at Pull Pull Pull in New York.

What emerged became an ongoing creative template for Xfinity - proving that even highly technical product stories become a lot more persuasive when people are laughing.