DirecTV drew a strong response to its DirecTV L.A. Rescue campaign featuring Customer Care Centers in four Los Angeles area shopping malls.

The recent two-day event, handled by Attack Marketing & Promotions, drew approximately 15,000 visitors to the four centers offering free smoothies in settings resembling beach cabanas.

Some 12,000 DirecTV promotional brochures, along with 7,700 smoothies in DirecTV-branded cups were distributed as part of the event at LA’s Third Street Promenade, The Grove, Westfield Mall Topanga and Del Amo Fashion Center. DirecTV T-shirts were also handed out at each location.

DirecTV sales staff on-site signed up 39 new DirecTV subscribers and got 70 leads. That was “icing on the cake,” according to Ivan Barnes, Attack Marketing account executive. The main idea was to convey DirecTV’s commitment to customer service, along with all those smoothies, he said.

“The whole theme was ‘Let DirecTV save you from the Time Warner Cable crisis,” Barnes said.

The “crisis” was precipitated by the collapse of Adelphia Communications and the subsequent acquisition of its Los Angeles system by Time Warner Cable. As Los Angeles-area cable subscribers were switched over to Time Warner Cable service over the last several months, they lost some cable channels that had been part of their basic packages to tiers requiring additional subscription fees.

In another phase of the DirecTV L.A. Rescue, Attack had people in strategic locales wearing shirts printed with a 37 inside a circle and a line through it—representing the number of basic cable channels lost.

Attack is planning a few more “guerilla-engagement marketing plays” to carry on the campaign for DirecTV versus Time Warner Cable, Barnes said.

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