In this silly ad for DirecTV, we see some sexy Sports Illustrated swimsuit model type of woman talking about DirecTV (like they always do) with her horse, which ends up being a supermodel version of Mr. Ed, talking about DirecTV like he watches it, rather than being threatened with the glue factory unless he pushes it.
We all remember the Rob Lowe DirecTV ads so many people loved, where Rob Lowe basically makes fun of lots of different stereotypes in American culture, pretending that if you get DirecTV you won’t be like that. In this age of political correctness, it’s amazing they got away with it. Of course, they got sued, but not for that reason, amazingly. I wonder what would have happened if we’d seen Asian Rob Lowe or blackface Rob Lowe: probably someone would have stared a petition. But it’s all the same to me with the insulting cultural stereotypes. Should there really be a double standard?
But using this same idea of DirecTV getting better results than cable, this horse idea could be expanded to do the same thing as the Rob Lowe ads: show why having DirecTV is better. (BTW: I agree: DirecTV is the best. Their ads are not, however, which ruins their pitch, in my opinion.) And it would work like this:
We see someone with cable trying to pull a stubborn donkey in the desert, and the ad likens this to dealing with cable companies (which is totally true, by the way), and then we see a beautiful woman riding along on a gorgeous tropical beach on a fantastic horse, like in the Hannah Davis ad, and the ad equates this to having DirecTV. And in this way, we’d have the same comparison idea as we get in the Rob Lowe ads, except nobody but donkey owners would complain. See what I mean?
Here’s the Hannah and her Horse ad:
