TiVo How Do You Get People to Fall In Love With a Gadget They’ve Never Seen Before?

TiVo Media Trailer

The problem: When TiVo hit the market, it didn’t sell, because the public couldn’t understand what it did: “Stop and play back live TV? How can that be?”

The solution: Since the public didn’t understand TiVo, they weren’t going to seek it out. The device would have to come to them.


The TiVo company hired us to create a multi-part campaign that would get their product into the hands of those most likely to buy it.

For the first part of the campaign, we built a forty foot trailer with TiVo units outside, a home theater inside, and oversized floats tethered to the roof. We then drove it to NASCAR events, which commonly drew 80,000 spectators.

Once there, a team of customer service reps showed the crowd what the units did, and how to use them. The trailer was regularly jammed with fans who wanted to play with the device. They would freeze one race, jump to the finish of another, and jump back again.

TiVo Tradeshow

For the second part of the campaign, we tricked out golf carts with TiVo units, drove them to NFL stadium parking lots, and created “Tailgate with TiVo.” Again, the same result: the fans, who were in an atmosphere they loved, surrounded by friends and good food, happily and noisily surrounded the carts for a turn.

For the third part of the campaign, we created the TiVo company’s tradeshow experience, which was designed to get the device into the hands of early adopters, corporate decision makers, and the media.

David Betterman

We manufactured a two-story booth, which featured ground-floor kiosks that allowed passersby to try the product without hassle, and a secluded VIP room, “Club TiVo,” where visitors could meet music and sports stars (thus furthering the TiVo theme of giving people access to things they never thought they could have).

The feature of the booth, though was a live, mock-TV-program, “The David Betterman Show.” For that, we recreated the David Letterman stage, and backed it with a 12’ X 10’ screen, which looked like an oversized television set.

During the convention, a Letterman impersonator appeared, and did an eight minute Letterman-style comedy show, complete with opening monologue, a “Viewer Mail” segment, and a “Top Ten List,” all about TiVo (Betterman: “TiVo works with every system—antennae, cable, satellite, foil on your head, whatever.”)

By bringing the TiVo experience to the people who would be most excited by it, we were part of a movement that helped convert TiVo from a “What’s that?” product to a dominating one.

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