Direct Response TV – whats going on?
EXPERT VIEW
By Andrew Napier
TV, Ethnic, Niche
Many years ago Channel 4 and BT conducted a series of studies into the effectiveness of direct response TV to establish:
- What is the most effective commercial length
- How long should the number be on screen
- How many times should the number be voiced over
- How long should a campaign run
- Which are the most effective days
- Which are the most effective times of day
- Which are the most effective channels
- What are the most effective programme genre
The answers to these questions were derived by matching spots transmitted to all calls received within 10 minutes of transmission and became the DRTV ‘rules’ which advertisers and their agencies slavishly followed – for better or worse!
Since those days things have changed!
There has been an explosion in the number of communication channels, not just in TV but across most media, and we’ve also seen the arrival of www.
So what is going on with DRTV?
Well, the first thing to establish is what do we mean by DRTV as the majority of television advertising now carries some form of call to action?
DRTV is the polar opposite to brand advertising where the sole purpose of the commercial is to generate a sale as cheaply as possible!
Of course there is often some element of brand building even within the most simplistic of DRTV commercials, particularly with new product launches, but the route from ‘Direct Response’ to ‘Brand’ can usually be identified by the creative execution and media placement of the commercial.
DRTV commercials will therefore be placed in the lowest cost airtime although these days the creative execution doesn’t have to look cheap – just weighted with the call to action!
However with in excess of 400 TV channels to choose from there is an abundant supply of ‘low cost’ airtime so the question of which works best still remains but with two important additions:
- What affect does DRTV have on other communication channels being used?
- What level of web enquiries does DRTV generate?
Does this mean there needs to be a whole set of new rules?
The first thing to say about DRTV is that there are, and never have been, any rules – industry averages yes but rules no.
Any advertiser entering into DRTV for the first time needs to start somewhere – industry averages – but they need to create there own set of rules; test, measure, learn.
So what about the new issues of web and multiplier effect?
ITV and the DMA have recently conducted a major study into how effective TV is when used in conjunction with other communication channels which shows that response levels to DM increase by 143% when TV is included, by 52% for Press and by 175% for online.
This means that any direct response campaign shouldn’t just be evaluated by media in isolation but also by the sum of the parts and the learnings incorporated in future activity.
With regards to the issue of how does DRTV drive web enquiries Thinkbox commissioned MediaCom Business Science to provide some answers!
Given that traditional thinking is based purely on response via the phone and the phone now only accounts for 15% of total responses this is a fairly fundamental question.
The key findings from the MediaCom research showed:
- 20% of online response came within 10 minutes of a spot being transmitted
- Online response was greater at weekends than weekdays
- Online response was greater during peaktime than off peak
In other words the direct opposite of phone response.
Does this mean we need to rethink how we construct direct response campaigns?
In terms of how we earlier defined DRTV (buying the lowest cost airtime) then the answer is ‘No’ as the dayparts that worked well for online response are not the lowest cost airtime and the fact that they worked well for online response would suggest that the 80% of online respondents falling outside the traditional 10 minute rule were absorbing the message and going online at a time that suited them.
Which brings us back to our central point – there are no rules in direct response TV advertising!
At brand-links we recently launched a new business in the financial services sector using a pure DR strategy and whilst we found the TV campaign overall generated a similar phone to online response split as the MediaCom research our weekend airtime generated more phone enquiries than online – directly opposite to the MediaCom findings!
Test, Measure, Learn
