2004

Twenty years ago this month, I was involved in launching one of the first infomercials in this modern era of long-form marketing: Ed Beckley's "Millionaire Maker," a no-down-payment real estate home study course. Fifteen months later, "MM," one of the first "home runs" of our industry, had garnered $60 million in sales.

Is short-form DRTV marketing going the way of the dinosaur? Do traditional DRTV marketers face the threat of extinction? The first three quarters of 2004 have been scary and portend worse times ahead.

Can you imagine a world where millions of American shoot and write their own homegrown DRTV commercials? For what end? For GeBSN, of course! The Global eBay Shopping Network.

Emotion vs. information; feeling vs. knowledge; right brain vs. left brain. Direct Marketers out there know good marketing includes all the channels. Branding for deferred, loyalty sales; direct response is for immediate response.

If you're a DRTV veteran, you'll remember the golden days of rich media efficiency ratios (MERs) of three, four, five and even higher. Those days seem long gone, as DRTV marketers accept depressing MERs in the ones and scramble for back-end, international and retail sales. Is there a way to reverse this tumble into oblivion?