When I first saw TiVo’s Blue Moon video, I knew that there was a good chance that it was a viral advertisement, but the more I watched the film, the more I became convinced that it was an inside joke. The film made no mention of the series 3 and I assumed that it had been posted on TiVo’s website for a long time and was finally unearthed by a die hard fan. As it turns out though, TiVo isn’t very good at keeping secrets and we now know that the video really is part of a viral marketing campaign. The secret was accidently revealed when an individual on Myspace had written that she had helped with the wardrobe for the film earlier this year and then linked to the Youtube video of the film and to a “fan” website called TiVoisaliens.com.

At first I was a little bummed out to find out that this wasn’t really an underground employee spoof. To a certain extent it took away part of the fun from it being a forbidden video that we weren’t supposed to see and having already become convinced that this was an employee joke, I felt a little foolish for not recognizing it immedietely as an ad. The more I thought about it though, the more that I was actually pleased that this was a viral campaign because it means that I was looking at the film the entirely wrong way. Because I figured that you needed to be an employee at TiVo to understand most of the jokes, I hadn’t really thought to look at the film for clues on TiVo. Now that I know that it’s a viral ad, I know that there are messages hidden within the film and to expect more films and more clues in the future. Before I just thought it was a film, but now I know that it’s really part of a game, even if I can’t figure out the rules.

The TiVo Community forum has a thread where they’ve done a good job of cracking many of the riddles hidden in the film. Things like the meaning behind the code WA – 01209 at the beginning of the film. If you reverse this in the mirror, it is AW – 90210. While this doesn’t unlock the secret behind the film, it does tell us that the mysterious A. Waterman isn’t just interested in killer robots, but also seems to like Beverly Hills 90210.

When he’s not watching 90210, he’s usually inventing and Alan Waterman has a number of patents in his name and an international patent that he filed directly with TiVo. I couldn’t find a patent for the killer robots, but I’m still looking.

The video has also raised speculation as to whether or not the release date is hidden in the film. The fact that the film was “recorded” in 1973 has caused many people to speculate that 1973 is really an anagram of 9/17 for the series 3. This would be consistent with the rumored launch date and it could help explain why the person who planted the video link went by the name of Steve Davios, which is an anagram of See TiVo’s V (viral) AD.

Of course the biggest mystery to me hasn’t been so much the clues within the film, but rather who was really behind this campaign. The whois data on the website is anonymized but gives the name of a mysterious Thomas DeYoung Parker as the contact person. On the TiVo is Aliens website, the creator says that his name is Robbie and that he was unjustly fired from his last job at Penitrobe, but this is really just misinformation in his quest to conceal the truth behind TiVo’s orgins. Penitrobe is actually the name of the company that Samir and Michael Bolton from the cult hit Office Space, worked at after they left their job at Initech. The firms name was actually Initrobe, but Penitrobe is what Peter called it when he was making fun of them for getting tech jobs after Initech burned down. Office Space was originally released on Feb. 19th, 1999 which doesn’t exactly line up to TiVo’s blue moon release, but it does mean that the movie was still in theaters when TiVo first released their box. If the bogus biography isn’t enough to tip one off that TiVo is Aliens is really a conspiracy marketing site, the insider photos that are hidden in Easter eggs on the site should be a clear clue.

Of course this doesn’t tell me who is doing the site as much as confirm my suspicions that TiVo is Aliens is really part of a broader misinformation campaign being put out to confuse those of us who have stumbled too close to the truth. It wasn’t until I took a closer look at one of the photos being hosted on the site that I noticed something interesting. In the photo, it appears that the clouds have somehow been digitally manipulated. If you zoom in close enough, you can almost make out some kind of writing on the photo. It wasn’t until I traced these lines, that I found a clue as to who is really behind this.

TiVo Is Not Aliens ProofTiVo Is Not Aliens Proof Hosted on Zooomr

Now this could be my conspiracy mindset at work, but surprisingly these lines appear to be a logo for the advertising firm, Ogilvy Group. Now the Ogilvy Group is actually a pretty big firm, but for years, TiVo has worked with a small subsidiary of theirs named B|W|R Public Relations. B|W|R is considered a “special unit” of Ogilvy and are known for coming up with stunts that tend to be more personalized and creative then your standard television campaign. Given that they are headquartered in Beverly Hills, their involvement would help to explain why they filmed project blue moon in Los Angeles and the 90210 reference at the beginning of the film.

There are of course plenty of mysteries still left to puzzle. Some have questioned if the code TS542 at the begining of the film is a sly ASCII reference to the TiVo series 3 being THX certified, but my coding skills are pretty limited, so this clue may be way over my head. There are also questions as to why they changed maps during the middle of the film and the significance of Ernie Swift. There are probably a lot of other things that I’m missing as well and hopefully when all is over we’ll learn the truth behind some of these inside jokes, but in the meantime, I’m having too much fun wondering if the coordinates of the crash site correspond to a release location to be too upset that I was duh-duped into thinking that this was an employee video to begin with.