DIRECTV Told to Yank Ads Featuring Rob Lowe After Comcast Complaints

[dfergie]

Don’t be like DirecTV, the Better Business Bureau’s National Advertising Division (NAD) says.

The watchdog group has recommended that DirecTV discontinue its popular Rob Lowe ads, which feature the handsome actor taking on what the commercial group called “one of several odd or awkward alter-ego characters.” The ads that always end with Lowe’s spoken tagline, “Don’t be like this me — Get rid of cable and upgrade to DirecTV,” may not be long for your small screen, thanks to a complaint filed by cable provider Comcast Corporation.

The NAD found that several of the ad campaign’s claims could not be substantiated, or were even flat-out unfair.

Source & More: thewrap.com

The decision isn’t legally binding, but companies usually prefer to deal with the NAD than to have a false-advertising charge referred to the Federal Trade Commission. DirecTV will appeal the decision to the organization’s National Advertising Review Board. The spots contrasting normal Lowe with “Creepy Rob Lowe,” “Painfully Awkward Rob Lowe” and “Scrawny Arms Rob Lowe,” among other characters, “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,” DirecTV says.

deadline.com

 

[maestro7]

Given the documented ways in which, say, Comcast has dealt with customers via the Customer Service department (likely performing a Google search on this topic should reveal the recorded instances where customers had fascinating discussions in attempting to leave the service), I would "reasonably" assume that DirecTV's marketing characteristics of Comcast are likely *less than* what one could expect in dealing with the company.

And this is why I'm using DirecTV for video programming and Xfinity for HSI.

I will never use Comcast/Xfinity for video service, if for no other reason than I believe their tech stinks compared to DirecTV's Genie package. And as for Internet service, I'm overjoyed that more competition is heating up in this arena in the Atlanta metro area.

 

[Sean Mota]

I think you can find the same about the satellite companies

 

[Bodo Fenrirsson]

I'll miss Rob Lowe,the current ad campaign seems lame to me.

 

[king3pj]

I hope they do give in to this and pull the ads. I could care less that they are lying in these ads. That seems to be true for 99% of ads you see on TV.

The reason I hope they are pulled is because I don't find them funny at all and seeing them over and over again during March Madness made me start to hate Rob Lowe even though I actually kind of liked him before. For some reason that ad campaign annoyed me more than any other campaign in recent memory.

 

[lhfh]

DirecTV told to pull ‘outlandish’ Rob Lowe commercials after Comcast complaint.
I thought they were so ignorant anyway.

 

[lhfh]

The Council of Better Business Bureau’s National Advertising Division told Direct tv to pull ‘outlandish’ Rob Lowe commercials after Comcast complaint.

 

[ChadT41]

Shouldn't this be in the DTV forum? Either way, I liked those commercials, but never took them serious. Same with the rich man with a mini giraffe. I honestly do not know what part of DTV they are advertising in any of the commercials.

 

[Willh699]

Shouldn't this be in the DTV forum? Either way, I liked those commercials, but never took them serious. Same with the rich man with a mini giraffe. I honestly do not know what part of DTV they are advertising in any of the commercials.

yes, your right, this should be in the DirecTV forums and not the Dish forums as it has nothing to do with Dish.

 

[BBCInc]

Who told them to pull? My wife liked the ads (or more likely, Rob Lowe) enough to interrupt my skip ahead duties to run each new one.

 

[ChadT41]

Lol. Off topic here but I went to the DTV forum, and saw the same thing posted twice(one here one there). And there is more talk about it here, which should be irrelevant to Dish customers.

 

[KAB]

Lol. Off topic here but I went to the DTV forum, and saw the same thing posted twice(one here one there). And there is more talk about it here, which should be irrelevant to Dish customers.

More people here.

 

[ChadT41]

Seems like there is more action on this forum on a regular basis. It just appears to me, and I very possibly could have a bias to this, but Dish customers or forum members tend to want to discuss more here. Whether it is agreement or arguing or regular curiousity, we tend to have multiple threads constantly updating, and when I look at the DTV forum it seems slower and sometimes stagnant.

 

[Yespage]

More sports on Directv, so people are busy watching sports.

Personally, the Lowe commercials are silly. Cable companies were grossly exaggerating about weather fade, even with digital, for years.

 

[ChadT41]

The way I feel about it, DTV is not doing anything that Cable, or really any competitor, hasn't done in the past. I remember TWC running a series of commercials talking about how satellite goes out on a regular basis.

 

[king3pj]

Like I said in another thread, they all lie. The most offensive thing to me is that the commercials weren't funny after seeing the first 1 or 2 they ran. They then proceeded to run about a million small variations on the same ad and then played it pretty much every commercial break of every game of the March Madness tournament. After seeing those same ads over and over again during every game I started to develop a hatred for Rob Lowe.

 

[Dah-Henny]

I don't think Lowe improved his resume' with these dumb commercials. Direct used to have the best commercials.

 

[dishcomm]

DirecTV told to pull ‘outlandish’ Rob Lowe commercials after Comcast complaint.
I thought they were so ignorant anyway.

Who or what is demanding Directv pull the ads?
Quite frankly, fair or unfair, if Comcast doesn't like it, I'm for it.
I view Comcast with extreme suspicion...I think the company's goal is to lock down as much of the pay tv marketplace such that they can control the vast majority of pricing and programming.

 

[dishcomm]

I don't think Lowe improved his resume' with these dumb commercials. Direct used to have the best commercials.

I have a question...What if anything was Rob Lowe doing in Tv or Movies?.....Anser? Nothing. D* got his name out in the public domain again

 

[teachsac]

Sorry, who are they to tell anyone how to advertise. Comcast is never mentioned in any of the commercials. Personally I hate them and find them annoying. So that's my option to skip forward or change the channel.

S~