As a medium, DRTV has traditionally been loudly dismissed by advertising practitioners and has therefore earned a bad rap with advertisers. However, the scales are now falling from clients' eyes and fewer brands are subscribing to the elitist step of choosing big brand advertising over the cheaper and more effective medium.
DRTV has at last shaken off the image of huge phone numbers that fill the screen and aggressive used car salesman patter. It has now definitely come of age and is capable of being truly creative, shifting warehouses full of product, raising millions in charitable donations and building brands. Names like Direct Line, More Th>n and the AA bear testimony to the effectiveness of the medium having pretty much built their companies on its foundation.
Research that WPN has recently conducted shows that DRTV ads are now readily accepted by consumers and can embody compelling brand messages on a scale that was hitherto only thought achievable by huge multimillion-pound campaigns, preferably shot with the client's hard-earned cash somewhere exotic and long haul.
The figures speak for themselves. DRTV accounts for a staggering third of all TV advertising in the UK with brands like Apple investing heavily in the formula. The appeal is obvious -- excellent return on a relatively modest investment and the possibility of building a meaningful brand message into the bargain.
So, it's clear why ad agencies are worried by their little DM brother. He is fast growing up and every year more budget slips south of the border into his territory just to prove the point. In 2005, the DRTV industry in the UK was worth £1.5bn (around one third of the total UK adspend) and accounts for around 13% of all direct marketing expenditure.
A good DRTV campaign can generate literally thousands of responses in the first 15 minutes of being aired and it's this "real time" selling (allowing for accurate sales reports and forecasting ) that is a marketer's dream.
In fact, brands are now realising that when they switch off their DRTV effort for a short while, the drop in responsiveness across all of their marketing channels is clearly marked. So successful is the medium that around 90% of TV ads have some mechanism for response in the short "mnemonic" at the end of the ad. Ironically, these vital few seconds, the traditional home of a pack shot or a telephone number, were once thought so unimportant by ad world giants that they would farm out the production to smaller agencies who were glad of the work.
Some critics of the medium say that DRTV relies too heavily on techniques such as repetition and cheap gimmicks but clearly those that hold this opinion haven't been watching much telly recently. Now it is a primary objective for anybody making a DRTV ad to make sure that the viewer feels that the brand is actually "right" for them -- in a world where there is increasing marketing cynicism all DRTV producers have to meet this challenge head on.
A DRTV campaign can be highly strategic and embrace exactly the right media mix, slotting into niche audiences and very clearly defined viewer profiles. As a bonus this usually means airtime with much lower costs, a factor that is again becoming ever more attractive to the UK's biggest advertisers.
In addition, the whole media fragmentation scenario is making the staging of a DRTV even less costly and the cost per response rate look even better.
Our research shows that consumers respond to direct response ads very favourably and even prefer it to bigger budget, all-singing, all-dancing above-the-line campaigns. Far from being perceived as the worst kind of advertising on television it is readily accepted by the target audience which understands its purpose. And, most importantly, consumers do not get a bad impression of the brand that uses the medium. Clearly, the medium is here to stay and is evolving fast into an effective and powerful marketing tool that not only does its own selling job very well but is now pretty accomplished at building brand values too.