Have a baby, get a TiVo at Parkland
05:09 PM CDT on Friday, May 6, 2005
By SHERRY JACOBSON / The Dallas Morning News
Women who give birth at Parkland Memorial Hospital over Mothers Day weekend will each get a free TiVo digital video recorder - even if they dont know what it is.
Company representatives were at the hospital Friday morning chatting up new moms and handing out certificates for the recorders along with free lifetime TiVo service, both valued at $498.
While the women seemed grateful and willingly posed with empty TiVo boxes stacked in their hospital rooms, several patients admitted later that they werent sure at first what the devices were used for.
TOM FOX / DMN
Clad in a TiVo cap, newborn De'Corian Hill poses with a plush toy. His mother, Mary, received a new recorder with lifetime service Friday. I had heard of it, but I didnt know what it was, said Qwenavon Greer, a 20-year-old Dallas woman, holding her newborn daughter, Genesis. It seems like a really good deal though.
The device, which operates on a television and must be connected to a phone line, automatically records TV programs as they are being viewed and can be programmed to simultaneously record on other stations. It also has more complicated features and usually costs users $12.95 per month.
Jessica VanPernis, a TiVo representative, said the company staged the giveaway at Parkland as part of a marketing effort to reach busy new mothers. The Dallas County public hospital was chosen because it averages 40 births daily, which makes it the busiest maternity ward in the nation.
The idea was to give new moms a way to have some personal time to themselves, Ms. VanPernis explained. They can watch their favorite TV shows when the times convenient for them.
ClubMom, a national womans group that claims a million members, endorsed the event, she said.
There were a couple of glitches in the staged event, however. For one, the company showed up with certificates printed only in English, although most of Parklands maternity patients are fluent only in Spanish. Hospital officials had to do a quick translation.
Also, the giveaway was meant to target births from Friday through Sunday, but the hospital staff figured it was asking too much for a woman who had just given birth to be paraded in front of the gathered media.
So several patients recovering from Caesarean births earlier in the week were recruited to do the job. They seemed more than happy to accept a certificate and to allow their babies to be photographed in TiVo hats and snuggling with soft TiVo dolls.
But the women also were confused.
Maria Ramirez, a 26-year-old Mesquite woman, juggled her crying two-day-old daughter as a Spanish translator explained that she was now a proud TiVo owner.
Is it for babies? Ms. Ramirez asked.
E-mail
sjacobson@dallasnews.com TOM FOX / DMN
Clad in a TiVo cap, newborn De'Corian Hill poses with a plush toy. His mother, Mary, received a new recorder with lifetime service Friday.
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