-By Becky Ebenkamp

QVC is launching a new ad campaign that will feature outtakes from its live programming, as on-air hosts, celebrities and product inventors veer from the script and their candid and comic remarks are captured in the creative.

Cameras were left rolling before, during and after traditional commercial shoots, so as to capture candor. Moments that would normally be left on the cutting room floor were assembled into comic commercials full of botched lines, pauses and offhand remarks.
 
Among the first batch of ads: Joan Rivers (who sells a line of Fabergé-inspired eggs) quips how she would have ravished the jeweller in another life, a QVC host obsesses about how the Sharp Aquos television’s high-definition screen accentuates his every wrinkle, and a Kodak film authority displays charming awkwardness in front of the camera by flubbing his lines repeatedly.  

QVC will create multiple variations of each ad, pieced together from many hours of unscripted footage, and will run them nationwide. The multimedia retailer plans to use its extensive roster of on-air personalities, celebs and products to develop as many as 15 additional ads during the next six months.

"We were reality TV before reality TV was a trend, so this [screen test-style campaign] is sort of a return to our roots," said QVC's svp/chief marketing officer Jeff Charney of the 24/7 network that has been on air for 21 years. "There's no safety net—when you walk into the room and the cameras roll, you can't escape it."

Charney wouldn't divulge future ad subjects, but model Heidi Klum, cook Paula Deen, comedian Whoopi Goldberg, designer Marc Bauer and TV host Carson Kressley are among those who have done QVC shows or segments.

The ambush-style ads will run nationally on cable channels such as Lifetime, A&E, TNT, History, H&G and TBS through deals with QVC's large cable distributors. QVC did its first ever off-channel branding last fall with the "iQdoU?" campaign.