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Avi Savar, founder and CEO of Big Fuel Communications, has a lot of experience with online video advertising. In a recent Adotas article, he offers his advice for successful online video advertising. Number one and most important is that you need to tell a story. Number two, add an element of surprise. Number three, make them laugh, make them cry, elicit some kind of emotion. Read on for more tips in this insightful article.

The direct response television industry has become more popular than ever, and the Discovery channel is capitalizing on it with its new show “Pitchmen.” The show takes you behind the scenes of the infomercial world by shadowing the best in the business - Billy Mays and Anthony Sullivan. For Tim Hawthorne, father of the modern infomercial, it reveals a world that he already knows very well. But he also sees it as a revolutionary way to blur the lines between entertainment and advertising.

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?

Should you consider using a toll-free vanity number with your DRTV campaign?  Our first instinct is to say "skip the vanity number." Why? Vanity numbers defy the very goal of traditional DRTV, and that's to create an accountable campaign where you can tell exactly how and where every call - and ultimately every sale - is generated. Vanity numbers inhibit traceability and thwart a company's ability to track their media buys, successes and failures to specific telecasts and stations.

Hand written letters. Baseball before steroids. Gasoline for a buck. Some smaltz, some regret, some yearning. Conjure up a personal "good ‘ole days" remembrance and you'll get a smorgasbord of associated emotions. For advertisers today, it's probably some longing, some terror -- for the bygone era of a sane number of media options: TV, radio, print and billboards. Today, of course, media seems as hopelessly fragmented as Humpty Dumpty after his fall. But when you manage to wrap your head around all the new options, you'll find your plate packed with choices that should have your DRTV-marketer's mouth watering.

There's a global economy waiting out there...are you ready to tackle it? We live in a global world, and we're all part of an international television advertising industry that presents significant opportunity for marketers looking to dip their toes into international waters.

If you've read any advertising related news story, blog or newsletter lately, you wonder how we all stay employed. Barely a day goes by without some new alarm that the web, cell phones, video on demand or gaming will doom traditional ad models. If we don't plunge in quickly, we'll perish.

What was once a love-hate relationship has slowly transformed into an all-out love fest for all things DR.

Stroll through the aisles of any mainstream retailer these days and you're bound to run into one or more DRTV products. Whether it's the George Foreman grill in the housewares section at Target, a Roomba vacuum or tube of Miracle Hand Repair at Sharper Image, or a full array of everything from Space Bags to Pasta Pots at Bed Bath and Beyond, these products have become as prominent at retail as they are on DRTV commercials.

Knowing when DRTV will and won't work can help alleviate issues down the road. The product marketer comes to you with big dreams of selling oodles of units via short-form DRTV. The brand marketer knocks on your door, looking for someone to produce an infomercial that builds brand awareness and supports its traditional advertising methods. The large organization calls on you to create a mix of long- and short-form shows to raise awareness of its mission.

Circa 1984, David Letterman mounted his Late Night pulpit to impose a national catch phrase. Despite unflagging effort, "They pelted us with rocks and garbage" didn't exactly catch on. Twenty years later, the little known Spiridellis brothers authored a web animation that satirized 2004 presidential candidates George Bush and John Kerry. Within weeks, millions of netizens were buzzing about their barb-filled This Land is Your Land. Unintentionally, Jib-Jab had manufactured the mania that Dave sought.