Voice Of Post

Rob Lowe ads pulled, DirecTV has ended its ad campaign with Rob Lowe and his funny yet creepy alter egos after complaints indicated the commercials were misleading.

Last weekend, the satellite provider moved on to a new series of spots, featuring Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue cover model Hannah Davis and a talking horse, reports The Los Angeles Times. But DirecTV's relationship with Lowe may not be completely over.

"We've talked with Rob about doing something else in the future," Jon Gieselman, DirecTV's senior vice president of marketing said Tuesday. "He loves the campaign. He's completely gotten into the characters."

Following multiple complaints from cable company Comcast, which were filed three months ago, the Better Business Bureaus' National Advertising Division (NAD) ruled in its favor Tuesday and issued recommendations to DirecTV based on the claims.

The omission of Lowe's signature line, "Don't be like this me. Get rid of cable and upgrade to DirecTV," was among the NAD recommendations because it "conveyed a comparative and unsupported superiority message." They also found no evidence that DirecTV had greater signal reliablity, shorter customer service wait times and better picture and sound quality than cable, according to the L.A. Times.

"(DirecTV) continues to believe that the various Rob Lowe advertisements are so outlandish and exaggerated that no reasonable consumer would believe that the statements being made by the alter ego characters are comparative or need to be substantiated," the company said in a statement following the NAD ruling, which they intend to appeal.

After all, the aggressive marketing approach was DirecTV's way to "steal" their competitors' customers and persuade the pay TV consumer to switch over and choose them first.

"The category is not growing," Gieselman said. "People are leaving pay TV. It's a share shifting challenge. We're trying to steal one another's customers."

According to Angeline Close, an associate professor at the Stan Richards School of Advertsing and Public Relations at the University of Texas, DirecTV's approach was spot on.

"When you can shock people like that, it opens up your mind and you're more amenable to being persuaded by the message," she said.
The Times' media writer, Stephen Battaglio, begged to differ.

"I think DirecTV thought, 'We have a great campaign, people are talking about it. It's entertaining people, and it's working. Let's run it until we get the cease and desist," he told CBS News correspondent Vladmir Duthiers Wednesday.

Regardless of their intentions, numbers don't lie and the satellite provider saw a spike in subscribers after the ads premiered.

"They were losing subscribers before this campaign came on," Battaglio said. "They gained subscribers in the two quarters where they ran the ads."

Additionally, the commercials have caused quite a buzz among viewers and competitors, which in today's fast-paced society is a rarity.

"For every one of those commercials, DirecTV received complaints from some group or another," Battaglio added. "If you can make people stop and watch a commercial today, that is a really big deal."

Despite the debate of the validity of the ads' messages, the campaign proved successful as DirecTV embarked on the next.

"We try to retire campaigns at their peak," Gieselman added. "Before they jump the shark."