Television Advertising's Salvation

PUBLISHED: August 21, 2008

By Bill McCabe
Senior Vice President
A. Eicoff & Co.


Can DRTV save television advertising from going the way of the dinosaur?  

As advertisers shift significant dollars from television and into the web and as technology makes it easier than ever before for viewers to zap commercials, doom and gloom scenarios for television advertising abound.  More than one media pundit has predicted that television stations will all eventually adopt the HBO model and make their money through subscriber fees and ancillary income.  

What these pundits have failed to factor into their predictions, however, is DRTV.  Direct response television traditionally does well in a recession, and this one is no exception.  Offers for high ticket items, not-for-profit fundraising, web-site focused spots and direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical commercials are just some DRTV areas that are thriving.

More to the point, all the signs point to DRTV doing even better in the future.  

First, consider an emerging trend—the diversification of  DRTV spots. If you study the commercials that air in a given non-network,  non prime time period,  you’ll discover a startling variety of spots—a variety that didn’t exist until relatively recently.  You’ll find hybrid DRTV/retail spots designed to generate sales directly and in stores; you’ll see direct response commercials for a range of high ticket offers (cars, travel, consumer electronics, home exercise equipment); you’ll come across numerous not-for-profit fundraising ads.  

Second, the Internet has actually helped rather than hurt DRTV budgets.  There’s no question that a significant percentage of advertisers have shifted dollars out of television and into Internet advertising.  Yet most of these dollars have come from blue chip advertisers running 15- and 30-second spots on prime time, network shows.  As viewership numbers go down, they naturally don’t want to continue paying an arm and a leg for these spots.  Yet they see DRTV as a natural conduit to their web sites.  In fact, we’re seeing a growing number of spots where the primary goal is to drive viewers to advertisers’ sites.  

Third, as cable and satellite stations continue to proliferate and the number of subscribers continues to increase, DRTV will be the beneficiary.  Since cable’s earliest days, DRTV has been its perfect advertising partner.  With its more affluent audiences (than broadcast stations) and its specialized offerings, cable/satellite is tailor-made for DRTV advertisers.  They can do a better job of matching an offer with the audience of a given station, and they can sell higher-ticket items because of higher income levels of viewers.  

Fourth, DRTV is a highly versatile strategy, one that can adapt to the new media.  Invariably, we’re going to see a great number of direct response spots running on web sites and smart phones, not just on television.  As a response-based strategy, it is naturally well-suited to phones and computers, since it’s easier to respond to an offer with these devices than through the television-telephone combination.  Perhaps more significantly, we’re bound to see advertisers creating traditional television DRTV spots to drive viewers to web sites to choose from a series of specialized DRTV offers.  A car company, for instance, may run a “generalized” DRTV commercial on TNT, and then viewers who go to the advertised web site can choose from spots for the company’s 10 models.

Fifth, the High Definition trend is perfect for DRTV’s bread and butter: demonstration spots.  From the earliest days of television, direct marketers have known that the more compelling the demonstration, the greater the response. Some products don’t demonstrate as well on television as they do live, in large part because mediocre picture quality and sound blunts the power of the presentation.  HDTV coupled with large screens and superior sound systems are changing all this, and it’s going to make television an ideal medium for demonstrations of everything from high-end kitchen gadgets to home exercise equipment.

What all this means is that television advertising is going to change rather than disappear.  It’s going to evolve in a response-oriented direction.  In fact, I don’t believe I’m being overly bold in predicting that at some point in the future, every television commercial will include a response vehicle.  Even brand-building, prime time network spots will provide viewers with a way to talk back, to ask questions and to voice their opinion.  Advertisers are pretty smart.  Once they realize that viewers are ready, willing and able to respond to just about anything that airs, they’re going to find ways to facilitate that response.  Web sites may be a part of every commercial, superimposed on the screen from the commercial’s start to its finish.  As technologies converge, a button may exist on the remote that allows viewers to respond immediately with all sorts of purchases, information requests or ideas.  

None of this is bad, unless you’re a traditional advertiser or agency that refuses to accept that the DRTV spot that once aired in the wee hours of the night is entering the prime time spotlight.