Dish Ad Woes Continue
At Dish Network’s Team Summit I was very excited to hear Dish Networks new Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Ira Bahr get on stage and tell Dish Network retailers that Dish Network that their advertising stinks and that he was going to work to fix it. His comment got him loud applauds from the crowd of retailers in attendance.
I got to admit it when he made the announcement I was happy as well.
But now a few months later and Dish Networks advertising still stinks, and to be honest after what I saw yesterday it appears that Dish Networks advertising is getting worse not getting better.
Yesterday Dish Network held one of it’s monthly “Retailer Chat” broadcasts. Yesterdays broadcast was an important one for retailers as it informed them of Dish Networks 3rd quarter promotions.
On the show the also showed Dish Networks new 3rd quarter print advertising and when I saw it I was screaming at my screen.
Below is what they showed…
Ads that are meant to sell Satellite TV service look more like they should be artwork hanging in some retirement home.
Why the hell are Dish Network ads so dull and so bad at telling people what Dish Network offers?
Take a look at any DirecTV print and then put it side by side with a Dish Network ad and what you will notice is that DirecTV’s ads are clean and polished and tells you exactly what you get from DirecTV. Dish Network’s ads however you wouldn’t even know they were satellite ads glancing at it unless you noticed the Dish Network logo.
DirecTV pushes itself on being the bast television service out there, while Dish Network seems to push itself as being the poor mans television service and their ads seem to indicate that just by looking at them that they are the poor mans service.
Dish needs to look at DirecTV’s ads and copy what they are doing. Whatever DirecTV is doing its working for them, customers are flocking to DirecTV while Dish on the other hand is losing customers.
In my opinion Dish Network has the best equipment out there, their DVR’s are the best on the market. They don’t push that fact enough. Their ads should make you want to crave one of their DVR’s much like one can look at the specs of a sports car and crave one.
Dish also has the most HD out there, they should advertise it in big letters. “YOU WANT HD, WE GO IT IT… AND WE GOT MORE THEN ANYONE!”
I don’t get why Dish ads are so meek. They have some of the things that are better then anyone else, why are they not promoting these things in BIG BOLD LETTERS. If I were Dish I would be shouting my advantages from the roof tops, not writing ads for the Readers Digest crowd.
Dish needs to give their ads style, glitz and make them eye catching, the current ads and new ads shown on the retailer chat don’t make you want to stop and look at the ad, they make you want to turn the page.
Dish wants to be the top of the line sports car in the satellite world, something that people give that prize to DirecTV but when you look at their advertising you are looking at a Mustang compared to a Yugo.
Ira Bahr was correct at Team Summit, Dish Networks advertising does suck, and unfortunately months later it still does.
Hoffman commented:
In regard to the tivo lawsuit, I think charlie is going to make a deal over it. His deal is he is going to buy the entire Tivo corporation and then use the precedents in the lawsuit to get money off the competition for every DVR that is out there. Its cheaper for him to buy Tivo- market cap ~1.0 billion, than to pay licensing fees and fines ranging in the 200 million amount. It only makes sense.
Satisfied Customer commented:
I switched to Dish in Feb and love it. They have 100 chs plus 50 HD chs for $9.99/mo for 6 mons. A co-worker gave me this number from a coupon he had. The no. is 1-800-998-3474 ext 177742 promo code A6. I gave it to my co-workers and they switched. Pass it own and save some cash!
anselmo1 commented:
In New York State, it is Direct TV in a landslide vs. Dish Network. Dish Network is still to cheap to carry the YES Network which broadcasts all the New York Yankee games. Who would want Dish Network if you are a Yankee fan?
shop commented:
FYI, none of your bill is going to the shopping channels, the shopping channels actually PAY the providers for carraige, either directly or via commission from purchases made by the provider's customers.
Also, DirecTV now has remote DVR scheduling.
Ed commented:
Assuming what Spoozie said was true, Dish needs to sign up with one of those high powered Madison Avenue AD Agencies. Sure it will cost Charlie but in return they'll get cutting edge high powered professional ads. At this point in time I believe Dish is the better of the 2 satellite services. Now, it's just a matter of marketing.
Spoozie commented:
The problem is Dish has a floor with 22 year old kids with no experience doing all their ads. Charlie is too cheap to pay an ad agency to create them. It is all done on the cheap, in-house, and it shows. Ira is the what...5th CMO in 3 years? With DirecTV you get Beyonce. With Dish you get a girl on a tricycle and a recycled Partridge Family song.
Dish Convert commented:
I recently switched from DirecTV to Dish Network for two reasons:
1. DirecTV keeps raising prices. I was definitely responding to Dish's recent low-cost promotions.
2. DirecTV doesn't offer Japanese programming (Japan TV). Dish does. (OK, not that many non-Japanese are looking for Japan TV, but DirecTV's international offerings are pretty weak in comparison to Dish.)
I am one happy Dish customer... sorry only that I didn't make the switch sooner. Dish has much better technology (DirecTV offers nothing like the two-TV receiver), and pretty cool programming the DVR from the web.
I do keep wondering why Dish is losing customers to DirecTV.
Paul commented:
When I was shopping for satellite many years ago now it was no contest between Dish and DirecTV. DirecTV had a lot fewer shopping channels than Dish. I wasn't willing to pay Dish for 200 channels of shopping when I could pay DirecTV for only 100-150 shopping channels. I don't think the DVR is that huge of a selling point for people. I loved having Tivo before I was on DirecTV and when I first started but I'm not giving up DirecTV just because my DVR isn't as good as it once was. People expect a DVR to be almost a value added service anymore and advertising that you have a great DVR isn't going to cut it. Advertising that you have the most HD might cut it but the ads need to be better instead of feeling like I'm watching an old Fingerhut ad.
Reaper commented:
I agree riffjim4069. I have FiOS now but I wouldn't even consider going back to Dish Network, DirecTV is my fall back plan. I left Dish when they dropped the VOOM Networks without consideration for their customers (I still miss Monsters HD). Nowadays their DVR technology is a tenuous quantity due to the Tivo lawsuit, and Charlie is too stubborn to make a deal. They not only have to do better marketing, they have to improve customer service dramatically to even remain competetive.
riffjim4069 commented:
Great points Reaper...Circuit City went bankrupt playing catch-up, follow-the-leader, and poorly attempting to mimick Best Buy.
First, Dish Network is getting their arses handed to them by anyone comparing Dish Network to Cable and the Telcos. Why? Because the competition is often providing equal or better services, and at a better price. Dish Network is no longer a "value leader" and they are doing nothing to differentiate themselves from cable and the telcos.
2. Besides having a 2nd rate marketing department as Scott mentioned, DirecTV has Sunday Ticket, more sports, provides an equal or better value, have all the channels the customers want, don't pull channels off the air without notice due to programming disputes, don't steal Tivo's Intellectual Property, haven't been found to be in contempt of a court order by not disabling infringing DVRs, and they aren't involved in a billion dollars worth of litigation (Tivo and VOOM). Dish Network is doing nothing positive to differentiate their image and their services from DirecTV.
Reaper commented:
A couple of points Scott: Dish shouldn't "copy" DirecTV's adds, they have to have differentiators - but you're corect, better DVRs and more HD channels are good ones. Also, Dish doesn't have the most HD channels, FiOS and Uverse both have more (source: www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1058081).