The One Show
The One Show is the world's most prestigious award show in advertising and design. For over 50 years, the Gold Pencil has been regarded as one of the top prizes in the creative industry. The One Show has a rich legacy of honoring some of the most groundbreaking ideas, created by some of the most remarkable minds in creativity.
Category
Use of Humor
Annual ID
OS26_FI038B
Background
Xfinity has been facing an increasingly competitive telecommunications landscape, with competition chipping away at Xfinity’s market share, reducing the overall marketing conversation to faster speeds and cheaper prices, and fueling a transactional relationship between consumers and their connectivity providers. To stay in the race, Xfinity had always focused on marketing the superiority of their internet, mobile, entertainment and security products in isolation.
Xfinity saw an opportunity to break out of the category and position its products as an integrated ecosystem experience that works better together with WiFi at its core. The clients challenged us to create a campaign and creative that would not only make people feel something about the brand but also help usher in a shift from a transactional provider of à la carte connectivity services to a premium tech brand delivering an integrated technology experience that is central to your connected life. The overarching brand platform that emerged, Imagine That, focuses on telling stories that invite consumers into a world where technology comes together and fades into the background, working so seamlessly that life feels simpler, safer, more extraordinary and more fun.
Xfinity saw an opportunity to break out of the category and position its products as an integrated ecosystem experience that works better together with WiFi at its core. The clients challenged us to create a campaign and creative that would not only make people feel something about the brand but also help usher in a shift from a transactional provider of à la carte connectivity services to a premium tech brand delivering an integrated technology experience that is central to your connected life. The overarching brand platform that emerged, Imagine That, focuses on telling stories that invite consumers into a world where technology comes together and fades into the background, working so seamlessly that life feels simpler, safer, more extraordinary and more fun.
Creative Idea
To introduce the “Imagine That” campaign, our client needed a launch spot that could seamlessly feature all their touchpoints in a single story. So we set out to find our hero character, someone who would benefit more than anyone else from using all of Xfinity’s products and features. We leveraged IP from Universal Pictures, a company in the Comcast family, and chose Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, a creature who, at the beginning of our story, is unable to learn even basic language no matter how hard the frustrated doctor tries. But when left alone for the weekend in the castle, the monster discovers Xfinity, and his whole world transforms.
Insights & Strategy
Xfinity, like all other telecommunications companies, has always been seen as a transactional gatekeeper. For consumers, it is a necessary utility and wholly uninspiring. We had to find a way to forge a new, emotional relationship with the brand and consumers.
While technology promises to make things seamless, your entertainment, mobile, security and connectivity are all cobbled together through disconnected services that are anything but seamless. From having to install third-party authentication apps to subscribing to multiple streaming services to get all their favorite shows, consumers face a lot of friction in trying to achieve a connected life today. True connectivity isn’t about more tech; it’s about the invisible harmony that allows you to be fully immersed and engaged in your life. Xfinity is a brand that believes their products should be intuitive, invisible and inspiring. We saw an opportunity to reframe Xfinity’s role from a provider of individual tech to an orchestrator that brings everything together to unlock a seamlessly connected life.
While technology promises to make things seamless, your entertainment, mobile, security and connectivity are all cobbled together through disconnected services that are anything but seamless. From having to install third-party authentication apps to subscribing to multiple streaming services to get all their favorite shows, consumers face a lot of friction in trying to achieve a connected life today. True connectivity isn’t about more tech; it’s about the invisible harmony that allows you to be fully immersed and engaged in your life. Xfinity is a brand that believes their products should be intuitive, invisible and inspiring. We saw an opportunity to reframe Xfinity’s role from a provider of individual tech to an orchestrator that brings everything together to unlock a seamlessly connected life.
Execution
To bring this ambitious and cinematic story to life, we hired Lance Acord to direct. His work on award-winning films such as “Where the Wild Things Are” made him the perfect choice. Göran Lundström, the Oscar-winning makeup artist, then came aboard to create our monster. And the Universal Parks crew joined as our indispensable consultants. As a team, we became immersed in the groundbreaking 1930s version of “Frankenstein” starring Boris Karloff, which led us on a path to faithfully re-create our Frankenstein story in its image. This path took us to Hungary and Slovenia—the lands of castles—for our shoot, where local crews sourced old Soviet laboratory artifacts to build our set, where our wardrobe team designed clothes fitting of the period and where our monster got a crash course in the joys of being human.
Results
As the title launch spot of our Imagine That brand platform, “Frankenstein” landed with a splash, with press coverage from major publications like “Adweek,” “Ad Age,” “Little Black Book,” “Muse by Clios” and so many more, generating an estimated reach of 99.5M. As the spot is still running in market, we do have early indications that it’s been a hit with consumers. The spot was tested in Ace Metrix and garnered the highest Ace Score (which measures an ad’s ability to garner attention, likability, watchability, desire, relevance and more amongst consumers) Xfinity has seen this year, performing +90 points higher than the 2025 brand average and +94 points higher than the footprint telco-industry average. Additionally, consumers have shared the spot organically to Reddit threads like r/HilariousAds and r/CommercialsILove and have left comments on social media praising the creative, claiming it was “the best ad they’ve seen all year,” “absolutely brilliant & hilarious,” “one of the few ads I actually watch all the way through” and “I’m getting Xfinity because of this.”
2026 Awards
Total Points: 9
Bronze Pencil
Credits
Agency
Goodby Silverstein & Partners
Production Company
Park Pictures
Music / Sound Production Company
Little Ears
Future Perfect
Sound Lounge
Post Production Company
Exile Edit
Pariah
Catch and Release
Art Director
Megan Platt
Composer
John Connolly
Copywriter
Cat Zelenka
Editor
Grant Surmi
Executive Creative Director
Pete Harvey
Sound Designer
Brian Emrich
Assistant Editor
Juan Steck
Creative Director - Art
Sean Farrell
Creative Director - Copywriter
Colin Nissan
Executive Producer
Olivia Baker
Scott Howard
Caroline Kousidonis
Lexy Leeds
Sarah Cassell
Michael Steinmann
Account Director
Kyla Novell
Assistant Account Manager
Ellizabeth Gordon
Business Affairs Manager
Kaitlyn Ahlefield
Chief Growth Officer
Jon Gieselman
Colorist
Daniel DeVue
Costume Design
Christine Wada
Director of Business Affairs
Andrew Zinker
Director of Strategy and Innovation
Alan Stout
Director, Brand Marketing
Victoria Cianciulli
Director/Director of Photography
Lanc Acord
Executive Director, Brand Marketing
Diana Hicks
Founding Partner
Jackie Kelman Bisbee
Group Account Director
Ola Abayomi
Head of Content Production
Amy Wertheimer
Head of Production and Operations
Chelsea Schwiering
Junior Communication Strategist
Emma Cotter
Manager, Brand Marketing
Sarah Kezbari
Managing Director
Mark Tobin
Sasha Hirshfeld
Managing Partner
Leslie Barrett
Mixer
Tom Jucarone
Music Supervisor/Partner
Maxwell Gosling
Production Design
Dominic Watkins
Prosthetic Makeup
Göran Lundström
Senior Communication Strategist
Taylor Yada
SVP, Marketing Communications
Todd Arata
VFX Supervisor
Pat Murphy
Vice President, Brand Marketing
Dustin Hayes
VP, Content Production
Ashley Henderson
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