Toshiba Unveils First TV Ad Campaign : Marketing: Commercials capitalize on consumer frustration with copiers.

It is a fantasy of almost everyone who has ever tried to fix the office copier. An employee, frustrated at the blinking message “Clear paper path,” loads the copier with dynamite and blows it sky-high.

That fantasy is being played out in Irvine-based Toshiba America’s first-ever national television advertising campaign, which takes a lighthearted approach in marketing copiers as the machines that people love to hate.

Another commercial in the Toshiba ad campaign, which debuted this week, shows a tow truck hauling an old, broken-down copier through an office building.

In both cases, the ads strive to establish Toshiba as a reliable alternative to copiers that constantly break down. “Before your copier gets the best of you,” the ads intone, “get a better copier.”

The goal, said Richard H. Walker, vice president of the copier products division of Toshiba America Information Systems, was to create a marketing campaign that will convince companies to consider Toshiba when they go shopping for a new office copier.

Walker said the company’s research has shown that the typical purchaser scrutinizes three or four brands of copiers from among 15 or so major brands on the market before making a final choice.

“Our goal is to get the Toshiba name among those finalists,” he said.

Walker would not disclose the budget for the campaign except to say that the division’s ad budget has been tripled over recent years. The ads were created by the Los Angeles agency Della Femina McNamee.

“In focus groups, we found that copier users have a neutral/hate, not a love/hate, relationship with their copiers,” said Peter Stranger, president of Della Femina. “As long as the copier works, the response is neutral. When the copier breaks down, users are reduced to primitive, angry emotions.”

The ads began Sunday during regional National Football League games on the CBS network. They will also air later this week during the National League and American League baseball playoffs, and during other NFL and collegiate football games during the season. In addition, they are being shown on Cable News Network, Financial News Network and the ESPN cable sports channel.

“The decision makers and recommenders associated with the purchase of copiers were shown to be . . . people who would (tend to be) watching sports,” Walker said.

He said the company decided to try TV advertising to sustain its growth in copier sales, which he said have been relatively strong in an otherwise flat market. Until the production of the 30- and 60-second TV spots, the company’s advertising efforts have primarily focused on industry trade publications. Still, the TV campaign will be supplemented by radio and print-media ads.

Toshiba America Information Systems is one of the five U.S. subsidiaries of Toshiba America Inc., a New York-based holding company for Toshiba Corp., the Japanese electronics giant.