The following excerpt from a recent Nielsen report confirms what most of us have suspected: The number of DRTV and DR Radio spots are growing.

Act Now! The Rise of Direct Response Advertising

April 16, 2010

While global ad spend has softened in many sectors, one format, the direct response ad, or infomercial, has seen a remarkable 18% growth in total units in the U.S. since 2007 according to Nielsen.  In total, direct response comprises 14% of all TV advertising, a figure that may continue to grow as blankets with sleeves, super absorbent towels and language learning CDs gain a mixture of mainstream awareness and web virality.

An analysis of a single week of all direct response national TV advertising shows that 88% of all U.S. TV Homes (or 101 million homes) tuned to at least one national direct response ad — on average those homes saw 32 such ads during the week tracked.  Over 15,500 DR commercials units aired across national TV for the week we reviewed.

What may be somewhat misleading about the chart above is that the increased number of spots are most likely longer length spots.  Our suspicion is this graph would be even more dramatic if detailed by commercial time rather than units.  Either way, this is one more indicator that DRTV and DR radio is on the rise.

Bill McCabe is EVP/COO at A. Eicoff & Co., one of North America’s largest DRTV agencies.

Tags: direct response television, DRTV, DRTV Best Practice, DRTV commercial, short-form infomercial

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