Direct Response (DRTV)

iMedia Connection is an excellent news and analysis site, but I take issue with a recent post that I actually mostly agree with. My gripe is that online evangelists keep claiming that performance analytics are new. The post's title is "The Rise of Performance-Based advertising." Rise? DRTV has measured sales response for decades. The subhead promises "the inside scoop on this new model." New? Please. DRTV agencies have played their part in marketing too, folks!

Response has launched AsSeenonResponseTV.com, a new, exclusive online video library featuring more than 200 DRTV long- and short-form ads and products. The new website is expected to double in size by the end of 2008 and will offer direct response marketers, agencies, vendors and consumers a completely objective collection of products available through DRTV campaigns.


Shopping channel QVC has added online ratings and reviews from social commerce technology provider Bazaarvoice, and is planning to extend customer interaction across TV and mobile. Ultimately, QVC will integrate customers' ratings and reviews with the television broadcast as another tool to raise the level of customer interaction and feedback during the live show. For example, graphics for specific products shown on TV will include the average customer ratings that were originally posted on the web site.

AsSeenOnTV.info has launched, claiming to be the top destination for consumers to investigate products they see advertised via DRTV. Think claims are exaggerated? The site says it will perform tests to answer the question: can it really do that? But that's not all! If you like what you see, ordering's easy, because the site provides "As Seen On TV" ad links aplenty. Unfortunately, peer reviews are nowhere to be seen, putting to serious question the proclaimed independence of the products' evaluators.

Looking to move DRTV success onto the web? Target Marketing provides five useful tips -- with many spot-on comments from our own Tim Hawthorne.

We know what everyone calls TiVo users: ad skippers. So what should we call Video On Demand users? Ad-oholics? In Los Angeles, Adlink just finished a campaign in which traditional 30 second commercials drove traffic to cable viewers' On Demand menus. Prospective car buyers could then choose to watch lengthier videos from a luxury dealership. In four weeks, viewers demanded to see advertising 4500 times. Not earth-shattering, but not bad for a city of ad skippers.

HSN has been airing interactive advertising on the satellite TV services. The ads look like traditional 30-second commercials, but they're enhanced with an interactive button. Click the button with your remote, and voila, you're watching HSN. The Tampa Tribune points out that this sort of thing could come to annoy the networks on which you place ads, but how's this for 2.0 Marketing? Advertisers might actually be willing to pay more if networks lose enough viewers (to their interactive click-throughs, of course).