Photos by Joshua Kendall
Will the real Broadband Man please stand up?
Lawrence's elusive superhero tells you what makes him tick By Samia Khan, Jayplaywriter
The cheers, stares, double-takes and gaping mouths of passersby don't faze him anymore. He waves, flashes a smile, puffs up his synthetic pectoral bulge and goes on with his superhero work. Before long paparazzi will arrive for sightings of the 6-foot-tall, freckled superhero with
school's Strategic Campaigns class. The students in the class create an advertising campaign for the client that the client can choose to use.
ADMIT IT. EVEN IF YOU'RE A HATER, YOU'RE WONDERING WHAT BROUGHT THIS LOCAL SUPERHERO OUT OF THE WOODWORK.WHO IS BROADBAND MAN? REALLY.
flowing cape and shimmering mask. Fame is spreading fast for the enigmatic Broadband Man - as fast as the speed of broadband.
Since the Broadband Man commercials started airing in January of this year, Free For All callers aren't the only ones enchanted with the phenomenon. Admit it. Even if you're a hater, you're wondering what brought this local superhero out of the woodwork. Who is Broadband Man? Really.
The concept was developed in spring of 2002 in a class on campus. Sunflower Broadband was a client for the journalism
Tim Bengtson taught the campaigns class that came up with the idea. There were two teams that mentioned a Broadband Man-type
character in their plan, but only one group's character was picked up by Sunflower. The group that won made a tape of the character prancing around Wescoe and explaining Sunflower's service to students, says Bengtson, associate professor of journalism. When Bengtson saw the tape, he thought the character was a great concept. "I thought, 'My goodness. This thing will actually work,'" he says.
There is an adage in advertising, Bengtson says, that teaches, "if you make the character famous, you make the brand famous." Bengtson refers to examples such as the Jolly Green Giant. The characters build a brand identity that makes an impression on the market and the customers. Sunflower employees developed the character's personality, look and story on their own.
People can easily relate when there is a goofy mascot who makes you laugh, especially when dealing with high-tech concepts such as broadband, says Emily Mulligan, marketing manager at Sunflower. Mulligan is in charge of the Broadband Man ad campaign. She says it's a great honor to work with a superhero.
For Sunflower Broadband, Mulligan and other Lawrence residents, Broadband Man is a real superhero. He's been delivering broadband behind the scenes for years. It just took a few commercials, the creative discovery of a campaigns class and a local company to coax him into the public eye.
Local residents of all ages rave about the commercials, Mulligan says. The company gets e-mails and customer service calls about Broadband Man all the time. Organizations request his appearance at fundraisers. When Sunflower technicians
The latest Sunflower Broadband commercial focuses on the question of who Broadband Man is. The idea for that commercial was born from customer inquiries and FreeForAllcomments, Mulligan says. But his identity remains a mystery. "I can tell you he's a man and he lives in Lawrence," she says. But that is all she can say.
to customers' homes, they're often ok-
jingly asked, "Hey, where's your cape?"
Many students on campus, including Free for All callers, claim to know who Broadband Man is. Tim Forthman says he met the man behind the blue mask just before the commercials started airing. Because Broadband Man's identity is such a secret, Forthman wouldn't say what Broadband Man's real name was. The Tulsa, Okla., senior met Broadband Man's alter-ego through student martial arts clubs. The two also had mutual friends, one of whom he says is Satellite Man. He says he just took his friend's word for it when the mystery alter-ego and his friends said he was Broadband Man.
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