A textual analysis was performed on the first five advertisements from Vonage’s “Crazy Generous” campaign, which began airing in June 2013. Also analyzed were Vonage’s Facebook page and Twitter feed, both of which now prominently feature “Crazy Generous” messaging and imagery. The ads ask the audience to consider what happens when the concept of co-optation, embodied by the Chief Generosity Officer, is itself deployed as a promotional tool. Three primary themes emerge: the CGO is Vonage’s “house hippie (Denisoff, 1975)”; interacting with him is framed by Vonage’s ad agency as a “sanitary act (Bishop, 2008)”; and that by coaxing the CGO to take a job with the company, Vonage has restored social order, even if the CGO’s former role as street preacher was only minimally disruptive to begin with. The performative aspects of the role have themselves been co-opted. Vonage’s new CGO crafts messages, instructs co-workers, builds relationships with fictional customers, and even breaks through walls, reconfiguring the company’s social space. But will his fictional bosses listen to his attempts to make sense of what he hears from disgruntled customers?
About the presenterRon Bishop
Ron Bishop, Ph.D. (Temple University, 1997) is a professor in the Department of Communication at Drexel University in Philadelphia, where he teaches courses in journalism and media studies. His fifth book, “Holding Up the Sky Together: Exploring the National Narrative About People With Intellectual Disabilities,” was published in 2018 by Hamilton Books. He has published more than 50 articles in a variety of academic journals across numerous disciplines.