La Salle Professor Weighs In On DirecTV's Decision To End Advertising Campaign Featuring Rob Lowe
By Rich Zeoli
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Dr. Michael Smith, Associate Professor of Communication at La Salle University, addressed DirecTV's decision to end its advertising campaign featuring actor Rob Lowe after complaints leveled by Comcast.
Smith told Rich Zeoli on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT that the cable giant may have had a legitimate grievance.
"This is Comcast's claim. Behind the humor and in some of the data and titles that were in the ads, they did make very specific claims about the things that DirecTV could deliver that cable, apparently, couldn't, in terms of signal quality and those sorts of things. We all paid attention to the really funny Rob Lowe and the creepy one and all that, but they really were making some claims, like most good advertising does."
He thinks DirecTV is moving on from the campaign to stop the dispute from escalating even further.
"I'm going to guess that DirecTV either saw the writing on the wall or said we've run our course with these ads and we'll end them around March and April and move on to the next thing."
Smith said every campaign must eventually come to an end.
"They talk about jumping the shark in TV, when a TV series does something with their plot that everybody says 'what was that? I don't want to watch it anymore.' I think some advertising campaigns hit that too with long running characters."