TiVo strikes back against zippers

NYT reported that holy grail on Madison Avenue these days is to create advertising that is “TiVo-proof” — compelling enough to owners of digital video recorders that they will watch the commercials rather than zip past them when replaying recorded programs.

In an effort to come up with a TiVo-proof ad for itself, TiVo is relying on humor, double entendre and unfamiliar body parts. In one ad, above, a baseball fan’s antennas spring to attention when his girlfriend beckons.
But how do you make a TiVo-proof commercial for TiVo? Executives at TiVo hope the answer is to hire an agency known for broad humor, talking animals and chirpy jingles, then approve a campaign centered on a silly (though eye-catching) visual device, meant to symbolize how much TiVo differs from generic DVRs.

The proliferation of DVRs means that viewers are increasingly watching TV programs on a delayed basis rather than live. That in turn is leading Nielsen to rework its longtime methods for measuring viewership to count people who play back a program within one, three or seven days after it ran.

And because so many DVR owners fast-forward through spots rather than watch them, Nielsen plans to start providing by the end of May ratings for commercials in addition to its traditional program ratings. (TiVo has started supplying its own data to advertising agencies, showing second-by-second viewing patterns among its subscribers.)

TiVo, as the brand of DVR that has become synonymous with the category, is benefiting from the growing popularity of digital recording in the same way that brands like Band-Aid, Coke, Kleenex, Post-it, Q-tips and Xerox took advantage of similar synonym status in their markets.

But TiVo’s gains in subscribers have slowed significantly as more operators of cable TV systems sell their own — usually unbranded — DVR services.

As of Jan. 31, TiVo reported 4.4 million subscribers, 1.73 million who owned TiVo brand recorders and 2.7 million who had TiVo service through their DirecTV satellite service. The total was only 1.8 percent higher than the 4.36 million subscribers that TiVo had on the same day in 2006.