I’m a DVR-user. A time-shifter.
I didn’t start watching “Lie To Me” this evening until the show was half-over. That way, I could fast-forward through the commercials.
One of the commercials tonight was for Verizon. But Verizon tricked me into watching it. Probably a lot of other DVR viewers were tricked as well.
Verizon did something extraordinarily simple and devilishly clever.
They hired Hayley McFarland – the young actress who plays Emily Lightman, daughter of Dr. Cal Lightman (Tim Roth) – to be in their ad.
McFarland was one of a series of teenagers featured, and she was easy to spot, even when scanning through at high speed.
Me – and God knows how many thousands of other DVR users – saw her in Verizon’s ad, thought we had scanned past the beginning of the next segment of the program, hit the brakes, and backed up to play… what turned out to be Verizon’s commercial.
Very, very, very clever (Unless it was just dumb luck, but what are the odds?)
Before watching a YouTube recreation of the event, have a look at Tim Roth and Hayley McFarland:
OK. Here’s a look at what doubtlessly happened on lots of DVR-fed TV screens tonight:
