DirecTV has begun airing an ad featuring Rob Lowe as a person who can’t urinate in public, and group of people affected by shy bladder is not pleased.
DirecTV has been airing an ad featuring Rob Lowe as a person who can’t urinate in public, and group of people affected by shy bladder is not pleased.
Actually, in the segment the actor plays two versions of himself. There’s confident, DirecTV subscribing him and a less than suave cable customer variation named Painfully Awkward Rob Lowe.
Painfully Awkward Rob has a bevy of issues, and among them is not being able to relieve himself when other people are around.
The point of the ad is, of course, to get people to switch from cable to the satellite service, but an advocacy and support group has been motivated to do something else entirely.
They’re requesting that the ad be removed as it is an affront to those affected by paruresis, a type of social anxiety disorder that prevents people from urinating in the presence of others.
It’s the group’s feeling that the spot is insensitive to what is a very real problem and adds to the public’s misunderstanding of it.
DirecTV said they have no intention of taking the ad out of rotation as the majority of their customers seem to understand that it’s not meant to be taken as reality.
