Backchannelmedia

B & T Weekly, April 14 , 2006

Is direct response TV a sleeping giant?

By Camille Alarcon

Such predictions follow the trend among advertisers demanding more return on their investments, as sheer numbers of viewers fail to reflect the level of engagement of TV audiences.

In contrast, DRTV ads can tell them just how responsive viewers are to the advertising message as they reach for their phones to dial the number of their screens.

Right now, DRTV is relegated to the off peak day time or late night TV schedule, but big advertisers such as Procter & Gamble are leading the way in utilising this targeted marketing platform.

Draft creative director, Peter Bidenko, said a brand-oriented DRTV ad can potentially provide both scale and noticeability, “so it actually performs two jobs—awareness and behaviour”.

Infobreak MD, Max Compton, said clients who want to engage one on one with consumers are increasingly using longer-form advertising.

He said one motivation for advertisers is to create lead generation particularly among finance, telcos and travel companies; while another purpose is to deliver complex messaging, particularly among pharmaceutical, FMCG, and health and beauty companies.

However, Bidenko said advertisers are never going to able to sell a car using a TV ad, but rather DRTV will allow them to start a communication chain. Interactive advertising launched on Foxtel just last year and has proven to be a success for Toyota, which has gone back for more.

Compton agrees that the biggest challenge for marketers is to stop thinking about DVTV as a one-step sales process.

George Patterson Y&R creative director direct marketing, Brad Waggoner, agreed that DM as a whole is growing so the likelihood of DRTV expanding into the mainstream is high.

“Especially with more channels I would think that more so on pay TV than FTA which would give marketers a smaller and more targeted buy,” Waggoner said.

Boston-based DRTV agency Backchannel Media CEO, Michael Kokernak, was quoted in AdAge this week as saying that far from the notion that direct response is “all about pills and potions and get-rich-quick schemes… it is really just a measure of human engagement. You're going to find it will be the only way TV is bought and sold”.

But it's likely that such a genre of advertising will stay in the off-peak schedule. Apart from the high costs of buying long spots during peak viewing, Compton adds there is greater likelihood that people will call for more information during the day rather than during a more popular program like Desperate Housewives .

So lower viewer engagement during daytime or late night programs renders long-form advertising a powerful tool, a fact which more mainstream advertisers like Telstra and Kimberly-Clark are already cottoning onto.

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