quickly and easily through the
conversion process.
Whenever BKV purchases
DRTV, it also incorporates search engine marketing (SEM). “DRTV drives
relevant search engine queries,” reports
Doty. “Consumers will look for brand
and product names, or descriptive terms,
from the spot. Therefore, when airing
DRTV, you want to make sure the consumer can also find your search listings
on Yahoo!, Google or MSN.”
Tracking media response rates is accomplished through the use of separate
landing pages. Tools such as Atlas dmt
and Blackfoot help BKV match geographic response rates against DRTV
airings. “The Web is probably our most
trackable medium,” says Doty.
“There used to be a vast gulf between
products sold at retail and products
sold on DRTV,” says Doty. “Consumer
electronics would never have been advertised in a DRTV spot. But increasingly,
DRTV is being used not only to sell a
greater variety of products directly to
the consumer, but also to generate trial
and excitement before the transition of a
complex product into retail.”
Expanding Base Driving Electronics
Demand
“Today, many large brand name
clients are entering direct response because they have discovered it can drive
sales from inside and outside the regular
DRTV channel,” says Rod Kempkes, executive vice president of direct response
for West Corp., a global provider of customer contact solutions. “Direct response
makes it possible for retail, Internet and
text to converge — becoming channel-agnostic. This combination allows the
broadcasts, and order pizza — all with
their remote controls.”
Osania Del Rio is director of marketing for Williams Worldwide Television,
an international direct marketing company in Santa Monica, Calif. “The biggest
challenge comes in understanding the
nuances of each culture,” she says. For
instance, while kitchen and housewares
products, whether electrical or battery
operated, sell exceptionally well globally,
with smaller homes and less counter
space in many nations, there’s a preference for smaller, space-saving items.
Of course, as in any DRTV product
rollout, testing remains paramount. “The
primary benefit of DRTV is its accountability and trackability,” reminds Hawthorne. “Within hours of a commercial
It’s not rocket
science.
But it’s close.
Direct response television.
Rubbermaid • Farberware • Drill Doctor
“About three-quarters of
the population research more
expensive purchases online,
but complete the transaction
at retail. —Tim”Hawthorne, Hawthorne Direct
creative
production
management
strategy
ATOMIC DIRECT
Portland, Oregon 503.296.6131
customer to interact wherever their comfort zone is.”
Catching said customer within his or
her comfort zone could also mean going
global. With 3 billion people in emerging
economies, and nearly half the world’s
population marching toward middle-class
status, demand for consumer electronics,
such as personal computers, is especially
high. India’s middle class is now larger
than the population of the United States,
and the Chinese economy is expanding
at six times the rate of the U.S. economy.
“In the United Kingdom, more than
70 percent of the homes have interactive
TV (i TV) capabilities,” says Mendelson.
“Viewers play along with game shows,
extract additional facts during news
telecast, we know who’s buying and
where they live or who’s not interested,
not buying and why. And within the
first week, we have enough solid data to
identify the target demos our messaging
is resonating with, and hone the media
strategy to match those responding
demos.”
“For small electronics, there’s no way
to anticipate success,” contends Jordan
Pine, vice president of marketing for
IdeaVillage Products Corp., in Fairfield,
N.J. The company looks for mass-market
innovations at the right price. Tests are
run on national cable using short-form
direct response. “We’ll test six to 12 new
products a year,” says Pine. “Based on the
results from a half-dozen stations, we can
