Old TiVo Commercials

If you go to adcritic.com and search for TiVo you can find a few

Dan

Where there actually TV commercials for Tivo? I've never seen one.

There were a few good ones in the old days. Check out adcritic.

Dan

Resist said:

Where there actually TV commercials for Tivo? I've never seen one.

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Joe Montana did at least one...embarrassing one.

I first saw Tivo in action in an infomercial at 2AM.

aadam101 said:

I first saw Tivo in action in an infomercial at 2AM.

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Hmmm...the one that I saw was at 3 AM. Wish I would have known it was on at 2 AM, I could have gotten to sleep an hour earlier.

I didn't see any really old ones. There are some later ones if you search for "My TiVo Gets Me" on YouTube.

Here's another one I found:

Thanks folks.

I am most interested in the long-format or infomercial-type ads (lacking humor or famous people) from the early 2000s, if not '99.

I'm not sure when this is from:

Dan203 said:

There were a few good ones in the old days. Check out adcritic.

Dan

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Let me make a small correction to Dan's comment: "There were VERY few good ones in the old days."

I knew how wonderful TiVo was, but I thought the commercials did a very poor job of actually providing consumers with any idea of what a TiVo actually was. They did show pause live TV and trick play, but that was about all.

Bob

aadam101 said:

I first saw Tivo in action in an infomercial at 2AM.

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I bought my first TV in 1999 or so based on an infomercial. I remember the check out person asking me what it was and I described it as a VCR that doesn't use tapes and has a built in program guide. She looked at me funny.

avocado said:

Thanks folks.

I am most interested in the long-format or infomercial-type ads (lacking humor or famous people) from the early 2000s, if not '99.

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What are you using them for? Perhaps you should send an email to TiVo's PR department and see if they can get you a copy?

Dan

Azlen said:

I bought my first TV in 1999

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Pat, I'd like to buy a vowel.

I watched a couple of the Tivo ads on adcritic and then it wanted me to sign in.

Azlen said:

I bought my first TV in 1999 or so based on an infomercial.

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So what did you watch it on?

Oops forgot a I and an O in that post. I bought my first Tivo in 1999. My first TV a number of years before that. LOL

mattack said:

Joe Montana did at least one...embarrassing one.

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http://creativity-online.com/work/tivo-golf/13178

It's a joke.

It's supposed to be way over the top campy and stupid -- and Joe and Ronnie delivered.

It may have been meant as a joke, but it was poorly conceived marketing, for a new product at the time that needed something very, very different. Sure, it was kinda funny to folks who already knew what TiVo was and could do. Anyone else? Not so much.

That was back in the time when TiVo actually felt like a wonderful innovation from the future. Sad to see how much of a lead TiVo lost, in all that time. I wonder if better marketing decisions would have changed any of this?

Here's the ads we got in the UK:

Standard "pauses live TV" one with Martin Freeman (not so famous then)
..and a quite odd one:

aadam101 said:

I first saw Tivo in action in an infomercial at 2AM.

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Me too! And I remember thinking "Those are SO COOL!! I want one!!" and then having my hopes dashed when I saw how much they cost.

Thankfully, the prices came down.