2005

For the past 10 years, I've struck out every time I've pitched testing the one-CTA infomercial. But now it's time we destroyed the myth about the absolutist three-CTA infomercial format.

If anyone ever doubts the power of advertising — of mass media — they only need to visit modern day Africa. Though still rooted in a subsistence farming-based economy, Africa has been "globalized." And it is advertising that powered this change. For good or bad, advertising changes minds, changes lives, even cultures and countries.

Claude Hopkins famously declared advertising is a science in his book “Scientific Advertising.” Bill Bernbach countered years later that “Advertising is fundamentally persuasion. And persuasion is ‘an art.’” Whether created via the muses of art or the discipline of a science, all advertising greats from Ogilvy to Jay Chiat have acknowledged the primacy of The Big Promise.

The May 7 running of the 131st Kentucky Derby, powered by Giacommo's astonishing 50-to-1 long shot win, got me thinking. Are long- and short-form DRTV still a prudent direct marketing option? Or have they evolved into a high-stakes, high-risk marketing horse race?

eMarketer, an internet research company, recently released their latest estimations on broadband penetration. By 2008, more than 69 million homes, 56.3 percent of households (vs. 34.3 million homes, 29.9 % in 2004) will have broadband connections. By 2010, estimates are that 8 out of 10 wired homes will have high speed. This rapid growth has been fueling both the "videoization" of the internet and interactive TV. Yahoo, Google, Comcast, among countless others, have implemented Video On Demand (VOD) initiatives.

Product placement (PP) has received megabytes of coverage during the past 6 months. But true DRTV marketers will immediately understand this is a case of "Where there's smoke, there's no fire."