I was watching ESPN’s NFL Countdown this morning and they ran a graphic across the bottom of the screen. It read:

Now on ESPN.com:
Why Packers aren’t focused on their record
Search: RECORD

Although I wasn’t all that interested in what the Packers think of their record, I already had the site up on my laptop, so I entered the search term. On the first page of search results, there were no results that related to the Green Bay Packers.

How does something like this happen? How does a major network like ESPN run a graphic on one of their most popular shows without confirming that what they tell customers to do will yield the desired result?

One of the most frustrating experiences for me as a customer is when the channels of a multi-channel organization do not communicate with each other. Years ago, I purchased a Sears product online for in-store pickup, and the resulting horrible experience I had (because the channels were not communicating) has kept me away from Sears.com or stores ever since. ESPN runs this type of graphic all the time, but the two times I’ve actually tried it, I haven’t been able to find the article they were promoting. I won’t do it again.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 6th, 2005 at 10:56 am and is filed under interactive TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.