DirecTV’s TV Ads
DirecTV TV commercials are well known largely because they use humor to point out that choosing Cable is a bad decision. In some versions of their commercials they show that choosing Cable can lead to further bad decisions that have horrible life consequences. However, their more common and recent approach has been to use a celebrity to talk about how they chose DirecTV, and then show their decidedly less attractive and successful doppelganger that chose Cable. While their approach has varied slightly since their first humorous commercials, the end result has been the same. They are pointing out that choosing Cable instead of DirecTV is a mistake and that only foolish people make that mistake. Because of their success, and their use of celebrities such as Charlie Sheen, Rob Lowe, and Peyton Manning, DirecTV TV commercials are among the most popular on the air today.
One of the most well known DirecTV TV commercials, and one of the first as well, is the ad run featuring Charlie Sheen. Charlie Sheen is well known for both his many movie and television roles, and also his crazy lifestyle. DirecTV took full advantage of this and devised an ad that was both hysterically funny and very memorable. In this commercial the unlikely protagonist has Cable. Because he cannot record all of his favorite shows at once he’s unhappy. Because he’s unhappy he goes to happy hour, where he may have had too much to drink. He then heads to a Turkish bathhouse where he meets Charlie Sheen. Later he ends up back at his house reenacting scenes from the movie Platoon with Charlie Sheen. The commercial ends with Charlie Sheen, in full camouflage, aiming a crossbow at the poor fool who chose Cable.
Later DirecTV took a different approach and began to run a series of commercials featuring Rob Lowe and his often weird and unattractive Cable choosing Doppelganger. These DirecTV TV commercials are probably the best known since there were 10 of them ran. In the Rob Lowe DirecTV TV commercials he plays himself and less attractive versions of himself such as, total deadbeat Rob Lowe, super creepy Rob Lowe, overly paranoid Rob Lowe, and bad decision making Rob Lowe, among others. The point that they are making here is simple, the attractive version of Rob Lowe has chosen to have DirecTV, and the far less attractive version has Cable. This simple approach is funny and since it is not very complicated the message is quite clear, choose DirecTV.
After Rob Lowe’s wildly successful run as the DirecTV TV commercials star came to an end, DirecTV then turned to sports legend Peyton Manning. In his DirecTV TV commercials Peyton Manning follows the Rob Lowe approach. He plays both himself and a strange alter ego that is far less admirable. He plays skinny legs Peyton Manning, as well as super high voice Peyton Manning, among others. Once again the message is very clear and simple, successful people choose DirecTV over Cable. Not content with only one Football star DirecTV TV commercials soon also featured the great Randy Moss, and Peyton’s own brother Eli.
Not happy to rest on past success, DirecTV changed up their formula and also featured Hannah Davis riding on a white horse on the beach. The punch line here being that you could take having DirecTV as being better than Cable directly from the horse’s mouth. Of course the horse talks then to further accentuate the punch line.
It’s not often that people talk about TV commercials like they do about movies and television shows, but with DirecTV TV commercials people simply can’t help themselves. DirecTV is known for their great price, high definition channels, advanced DVR, and overall great value and service. While a simple approach for DirecTV would have been to feature commercials that simply tell people this, they instead chose a more creative route, and it really paid off for them. By hiring better writers, and recognizable actors, DirecTV was able to produce commercials that were of a higher quality and more endearing impact than most other commercials on television. If you are interested in having DirecTV then chances are pretty good that one of the big reasons is you saw a DirecTV TV commercial.
