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DRTV’s Impact on Traditional Marketing

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

It dawned on me as I was watching the Olympics this week the impact DRTV is having on traditional marketers. While we didn’t see a preponderance of 800#/drive to web (though I saw some), the impact I spotted was more subtle.

There has been a great deal of discussion regarding the web’s impact on television viewing. We’ve discussed at length the misperception that TV viewing is declining — there is plenty of research recently published that shows that, in fact, TV viewership is increasing.

Digging deeper behind the “TV is Dying” headlines, I’d propose that what the “experts” really want to be saying is, “The :15 and :30 TV Commercial is Dying.” I suspect that general marketers are beginning to learn what DRTV marketers have known for a long time — longer length commercials are more effective than shorter length commercials.

Here are a couple spots from Nike and P & G that appeared frequently during the Olympics:

Personally, I love these spots — I don’t get tired watching them. The question I ask myself is, “Would I like them as much if they were a :15 or a :30?” Probably not.

As more traditional marketers become exposed to the benefits of longer length DRTV spots, I believe you are going to see traditional marketers shift the balance from :15/:30’s to :60/:90/:120’s. The same reason DRTV marketers know they generate more calls/traffic per dollar via longer length sports, smart traditional marketers will learn this is the strategy they will need to follow for TV to be effective for them.

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

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TV Viewership and Its Impact on DRTV

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

Much has been written about the demise of television at the hands of the web. The recent report issued from Nielsen may put a snag in the theory that TV is a dying medium.

The graph below indicates that TV viewership continues to grow, and hit an all-time high last quarter. This by no means diminishes the role of the internet (and, more importantly, its role as a DRTV response option), but it does give one pause to think that HD-quality 52-inch television viewing is going to be replaced by people viewing shows on their cellphones anytime soon.

New Picture

The skeptics will say that viewership may be increasing for viewers 18+ but the next generation of viewers will act differently. This may be true, however Nielsen’s latest data on viewers 2-11 indicate that viewership is increasing there as well.

New Picture (1)

Web Impact on DRTV

Many of us remember the heady times of the late ‘90’s in Silicon Valley. Start-up internet companies in garages were receiving millions of dollars in seed money. As the web continued its growth, one had to naturally begin to wonder what the web’s impact would be on the television industry, and on DRTV specifically.

Looking back on it, the internet is the best thing that ever happened to the DRTV industry. The primary benefit: accountability. Marketing and product managers have had to become much more accountable when it comes to their marketing budgets. And for many marketers, take a guess what is usually the largest line item in their marketing budget: TV.

DRTV has allowed marketers to better justify the dollars they spend on TV. As the technology continues to evolve, there is no doubt this efficiency and accountability will continue to grow.

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

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