From its humble and sometimes maligned beginnings, who would have thought that DRTV would become an appealing alternative for general advertisers seeking the holy grail of ROI?

How It All Started

Just a few years ago, some of the largest retail and packaged goods TV advertisers began challenging their agencies to become accountable for more than delivering target rating points. New requisites of accountability meant building new models on the metrics of revenue generation as a correlation to advertising spend. But wait — wasn’t there a group of marketers already using TV to sell directly, using ratio of media costs to revenue generation as a driver of scheduling strategy?

When it became clear that simply adding a response mechanism, to create the required call to action, would allow for better metrics tracking as well as lower costs, several general advertisers dipped their toes into DRTV. Others plunged in feet first. Many had disappointing results, because the world of direct response broadcast media especially, requires a unique base of knowledge. But then, about 4-years ago the the king of all packaged goods manufacturers and the largest advertiser in the world, Procter & Gamble, found that it could accomplish two things with DRTV: (1) Create lead generation and measurable response; and (2) Brand its products through a supporting strategy to its general advertising efforts that increased awareness and promoted trial at much lower CPMs.

Taking Advantage of the Trend

As the migration of general advertisers to DRTV grows, prices of short-form DR media will increase — to the detriment of smaller DRTV advertisers and their agencies who rely on lower-end pricing to achieve proper efficiency ratios. The buying tactics employed now by DRTV agencies — like “negotiating” the lowest possible rates without regard to distinct targeting to make a campaign profitable, or laying-in an entire calendar quarter to “secure” schedules — will become obsolete when bigger general advertisers are willing to pay slightly more. “Negotiated” and “long-term” spot schedules, in all likelihood, will be gone.

In many instances, general advertisers know that DRTV is a whole new ballgame. Instead of using their general ad agency, they seek out the expertise that comes from years of DRTV experience. But, general advertisers also have a set of unique expectations that many DRTV agencies do not regularly address. Schedule ratings delivery, efficiency analytics like Cost-per-rating point and CPM, consumer profiling and high level targeting are just a few of the advertising metrics that general advertisers look to in being able to project and judge their overall marketing efforts. To that end, Direct Avenue has upgraded our client deliverables to include staff members with a background in general advertising analytics. We speak the language that general marketers understand. We’ve added higher level analytics services that have proven capabilities to increase our clients’ profits.

No longer is our media buying solely placed on historical DRTV response data that is not relevant in today’s evolved marketplace. We develop comprehensive plans that address campaign objectives, strategic alternatives and guidelines for new methods of rate negotiation. We measure the fine nuances of general advertising like reach, frequency, daypart weighting and the whole list of fine tuned audience efficiency calculations.

Finally, we’re developing a suite of analytics that even general agencies haven’t gotten their heads around, such as profiling and segmentation of key customer attributes like geo-demography and psychographics. Once you define key targets along those lines, it opens up a new world of strategic planning that addresses TV viewing habits, multi-media integration, optimization, media behavioral characteristics and product purchase cycles.

Direct Avenue is finding ways to take the waste out of media spend and make every dollar accountable. That’s what true ROI is all about. And, that’s a new kind of DRTV that can drive new levels of direct response across multi-media, and retail sales as well.