How CenturyLink Misused "Yes, And"

In 2016, the regional telecommunications company CenturyLink (formerly Quest and formerly US West) began running a series of commercials promoting their Prism TV offerings. The spots featured the actor Paul Giamatti playing himself, somehow stuck in a house with a family who uses Prism TV, and are, therefore, "Hollywood Insiders".

One of the commercials, titled Improv, portrayed the family as improv experts who know all about Yes, And. Watch it here:

"By saying Yes, And," the father says, "We are accepting the reality created by our comedy partners, Paul."

Um, no. No, you're not...  Dad. And thus, CenturyLink (and their ad agency) misstate what Yes, And is all about. Yes means we honor what you have said by treating it as real. The And is supposed to come from us, not something thrown back at the person who initiated the interaction.

All four family members treat Paul with a lack of respect in this spot. Improvisation is based in respect.

The lack of respect is also representative of how our company has been treated by CenturyLink since they bought Quest and become our telephone provider. At the time this commercial ran, we were down to one landline, used for faxes. After I saw this commercial for the second time (and was sure of what it said), I canceled the landline and set up faxing on our VoIP system.

There are reasonable debates about how to implement Yes, And. I'm not sure how this script got shot the way it did with no one questioning the fallacy. It did get produced, and it fits very well into the Prism TV series of a terrible family treating a good actor badly.

Again, improvisation is based on respect. It requires engagement, empathy, focus and cohesion. Improv doesn't need jerks. Actually CenturyLink, the first rule of improv is be nice.