Madison Avenue Comes To Main Street: With Digiday Award-Winning Video Series, Calix Enables Service Providers To Easily Create Incredibly Entertaining Commercials in Their Markets

Calix and its customers take home prestigious Best Advertiser award from Digiday for breaking new ground with innovative go-to-market campaigns powered by the latest Calix Market Activation videos starring A-list comedian Gerry Dee

Calix, Inc. (NYSE: CALX) is named “Best Advertiser in TV or Video” by the 2023 Digiday Video & TV Awards for its latest series of popular and entertaining market activation videos starring A-list comedian, Gerry Dee. These videos are available to Calix-partnered broadband service providers (BSPs) as part of a large-scale online repository of customizable go-to-market creative assets in the award-winning Calix Market Activation (Market Activation) program. First launched in 2021, the video spots feature narratives that enable BSPs to successfully differentiate in their markets by defining their brand around managed services—rather than solely the speeds they offer. Hundreds of BSPs have downloaded the Gerry Dee videos to drive high-impact go-to-market campaigns and grow their brands around differentiated value. Paired with transformational data and insights from award-winning Calix Marketing Cloud (Marketing Cloud), BSPs leveraging such assets in the Market Activation program can reduce go-to-market time and expense by more than 50 percent. This milestone award underlines the commitment by Calix to enable BSPs of any size to easily create and execute world-class marketing campaigns and grow unbeatable brands, even when competing against the biggest market players.

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Comedian Gerry Dee in “Playhouse.” (Photo: Calix)

Calix first launched the video series, produced in partnership with creative agency Decision Counsel, in 2021. Calix unveiled a fresh slate of market activation videos starring Dee at its annual innovation and customer success event, Calix ConneXions, in 2022. The video series aligned with the introduction of new managed services, including an extended partnership with Arlo to deliver fully managed home protection, SmartTown™ for community-wide Wi-Fi services, and SmartBiz™ to meet the unique productivity needs of small businesses. The latest series shows Dee playing a role he knows well: a father on the hunt for the best internet experience for him and his family at home and around town. The series takes viewers on a journey, illustrating the value of connected cameras at home, connected cafés in town, community Wi-Fi in the park, and more:

• “Soccer”: Productivity might be the excuse, but thanks to fully connected community Wi-Fi experiences enabled by SmartTown, Dee and other local parents can stream, Zoom, and shop their way through a less-than-elite youth soccer game.
• “Frankie”: Dee finds that, with SmartBiz, the Wi-Fi at his favorite coffee shop, Frankie’s Cafe, is so reliable that he may never leave—even after the staff grows tired of him.
• “Undercover”: Oh, how the mighty have fallen. In the second SmartBiz short, Dee gets another dose of reality at Frankie’s Café, where locals can’t quite place the shop’s new undercover celebrity. Luckily, Frankie’s Wi-Fi is so good, Dee is an afterthought.
• “Man Cave”: Back at home, Dee has outfitted his daughter’s pink playhouse to find some solitude amid the madness. And his rugged Calix GigaSpire® BLAST Wi-Fi system keeps him fully connected no matter how good his daughter’s fastball is.
• “Playhouse”: The rugged GigaSpire BLAST Wi-Fi system continues to be tested by Dee’s daughters. Ever in pursuit of a place to call his own, the weatherproof system comes with an extended range to keep Dee’s man cave connected as he drags it to the farthest corner of the backyard.
• “Gnomes”: How many gnomes does one grown man need? Dee uses Arlo Secure connected cameras to protect his extensive prized gnome collection—but forgets to protect the rest of his home.

“The easily customizable Gerry Dee market activation videos from Calix are a testament to how humor enables us to further develop close ties with our subscribers,” said Nate Palmer, vice president, marketing at CentraCom. “Our customer-first approach defines our brand value in our Utah communities, many of which we have served for over a century. Our marketing team leveraged these videos to promote our Wi-Fi service across multiple channels to a strong reception. The ability to leverage these world-class creative assets frees up our team to focus on how else we can improve the subscriber experience. We can’t wait to see what Calix and Dee come up with next.”

“The success of this video series starring Gerry Dee proves a critical point,” said Matt Collins, chief commercial operations officer at Calix. “You do not have to be the biggest BSP in your market to run a highly impactful, high-quality, go-to-market campaign. That is exactly why we created the Market Activation program for our customers. This video series is the only one of its kind in the broadband industry, and the popularity of these videos shows how easy it can be for even the smallest BSP to launch a local-market campaign as funny, entertaining, and creative as anything Madison Avenue might produce with a million-dollar budget. The Market Activation program enables BSPs to successfully engage subscribers with a branded message built around their value—rather than just the speed they offer. By pairing these easily customizable videos and the other turnkey assets from the Market Activation program with the power of the Calix platform, broadband marketers can support rapid growth while developing invincible brand value.”

Gerry Dee was last seen in his pink playhouse in the backyard, taking advantage of the connectivity afforded by his GigaSpire BLAST Wi-Fi system to work on the next set of Market Activation videos planned for release later this year.

Learn how the award-winning content in the Calix Market Activation program helps BSPs accelerate business growth.

About Calix

Calix, Inc. (NYSE: CALX)—Broadband service providers (BSPs) of all sizes leverage the Calix broadband platform and managed services to simplify their businesses, excite their subscribers, and grow their value. The Calix platform and managed services enable our customers to grow their subscriber base, revenue, profitability, and subscriber satisfaction—and ultimately transform the communities they serve. Calix is dedicated to driving continuous improvement in partnership with our growing ecosystem to support the transformation of our BSP customers and their communities.

This press release contains forward-looking statements that are based upon management’s current expectations and are inherently uncertain. Forward-looking statements are based upon information available to us as of the date of this release, and we assume no obligation to revise or update any such forward-looking statement to reflect any event or circumstance after the date of this release, except as required by law. Actual results and the timing of events could differ materially from current expectations based on risks and uncertainties affecting Calix’s business. The reader is cautioned not to rely on the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. Additional information on potential factors that could affect Calix’s results and other risks and uncertainties are detailed in its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC and available at www.sec.gov.

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