By Steve Donohue 9/26/2005

Wrapping its brand and marketing campaigns with the American flag has helped drive subscriber growth for at least one cable operator. Cable veteran Steve Simmons, who acquired RCN Corp.’s Princeton, N.J., systems in 2003, said patriotism drove the idea for the brand of his company — Patriot Media & Communications — a moniker first coined by one of his high-school age children. “I sat around the table with my five kids, and we thought about what would be a good name for the company. It was not too long after 9/11, and one of the kids suggested Patriot Media,” chairman and CEO Simmons recalled last week. Patriot Media, which counts about 80,000 video subscribers and 30,000 high-speed data subscribers, made the American flag a centerpiece of a marketing push that it ran this summer. The campaign’s theme: “I love America.” The operator sent gift boxes to 100,000 households in its service area in July, including nonsubscriber homes.

Continued at Multichannel.com