2007

Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Ed Markey, D-Mass., have asked the FCC to review its advertising disclosure rules. The congressmen contend that today's product placements are purposefully deceptive and blur the separation of commercials and content. Well, yes. That's the point.

Traditional advertisers bemoan the demise of the mass appointment TV audience, but DRTV veterans shrug unconcerned. Provided that media rates are set by sane GSMs, fragmentation will never destroy the direct response model. We've always built our audience by methodically aggregating comparatively small groups. One thousand clusters of 1,000 consumers respond significantly better than do 1 million viewers you reach all in one shot - so long as historical response data directs your audience targeting and media buys.

Brands with a future take risks. Giving consumers your brand platform -- for them to play with -- is the risk du jour. More and more companies are launching contests that ask consumers to generate commercials -- just like Madison Avenue makes (or so they hope!). Most participants love the challenge, while others crave the incentives. The standard issue prize package includes cash, air time and the fame that accompanies both. And a classic consumer ad contest in the making is from Heinz.

Advertisers are uneasy. It's not just because we're learning new media and formats, it's because our audience claims it hates ads. You've seen the statistics. DVR owners love their ad-skipping button. Web surfers install ad-blockers. Mobile phone users delete before peeking. Consumers gripe that ads are intrusive and interrupt the enjoyment of the content they want. Sounds bad. But if we accept these complaints at face value, we can knock down the walls of resistance. It's simple: we must make our ads as compelling as the content surrounding them.

A year ago, widgets were barely a blip on the direct response radar. Today, they're the Web's hottest trend and are page-one material on the blogosphere beat.

Online video is a bandwidth hog. Animations dominated the dial-up era not only because they opened up creative vistas, but also because end users' computers could handle them. Video demands bigger data pipes and better computers. Advertisers also need really good servers and dependable, plentiful bandwidth.

The airwaves are cluttered with boring advertisements that do nothing more than put stuff under consumers' noses in hopes that someone, somewhere will sit up and take notice. It's time to stop the insanity and start producing commercials that people want to watch, and that they actually respond to. People are zapping commercials for one key reason: because the ads aren't compelling enough to stop and watch.

Tim Hawthorne, Chairman and Executive Creative Director of Hawthorne Direct, explains to direct marketers what Videoactive Advertising (TM) is all about, and why DRTV experts are uniquely equipped to thrive in the digital era.

With more and more companies launching consumer-generated video initiatives, you have to wonder if brands like playing follow-the-leader or if they can make a genuine marketing case. hawthorne direct's Founder and Executive Creative Director Tim Hawthorne identifies five ways to monetize these efforts, and suggests that a contest's design can itself play a role in its impact.

Successful DRTV marketers should be entertaining and educating, not just selling

No one likes to be "advertised to," but everyone loves to be entertained and educated. Knowing this, why aren't more marketers taking a page from the large corporations' books and creating commercials that do more than just push products and services on consumers that really aren't watching - or paying attention - anyway?