Savage: Our ability to re-target and understand consumers’ interests by tracking behavior online, and to contextually target with
relevant online content, is dramatically impacting media plans
and product sales. Social media will become even more influential in customer education and behavior in the year ahead.
Stacey: In the past 12 months, not much has significantly
changed at our company technology-wise, except everyone —
including the janitor — now has a Blackberry and most people
are available on it 24/7. This has definitely increased the mobility of our staff and their productivity.
Is it becoming more important to produce DR campaigns
in HD? If so, what are the cost differences from
producing your campaign in standard mode?
Hawthorne: It is more important, from the clients’ viewpoint.
Using HD cameras can add $3,000 to $15,000 to production
budgets — and another $10,000 for editing. For many DRTV
marketers, the additional expense of HD isn’t justified, since
most dubs still are distributed to stations in standard-def and the
jury is still out as to HD’s impact on viewer purchasing.
Knight: There’s no hiding from HD’s continued growth in popularity and increased presence in homes. Clearly, the business is
traveling to an all-HD world, and as more HD platforms become
available, it makes clear sense for DR marketers to stake a claim
in the space. Refusing to expand HD into your campaigns runs
the risk of missing an attractive consumer base.
Orsmond: We create DRTV spots for a wide selection of clients,
and it really is dependent on the budget available. For example,
of the 18 new DRTV spots we’ve made in the past 12 months,
only one production was filmed in HD.
Stacey: It’s becoming more important, but it’s not absolutely
necessary at this stage. Differences in costs and overall impact
can be significant. Images in HD look much sharper and slicker.
Visually, it can be similar to comparing a picture taken by a
2-megapixel phone camera and an image taken with a 10-meg-
apixel camera.
With Generation X coming into its peak buying power
and Generation Y hitting consumer age, how must DR
marketers change in order to reach two generations of
consumers who dislike push marketing?
Eden: I’m not sure if it’s push marketing vs. “self-focused” marketing to these generations. Both are truly into the idea of, “What’s
in it for me?” They will be sold and they will buy, but the relevance — primarily convenience and status — is a key determinate in effectively selling this audience.
Garnett: Every generation believes it is rejecting “push” advertising. Remember the “anti-materialism” of the ’60s? Those Baby
Boomers are now the foundation of consumerism. Do we sell
to them differently? Not much. The big change with these new
generations is that they are technologically savvy, and we’ll
have to deal with some new parts of communicating with them.
When a good product is offered at a good price via smart advertising, there’s no difference in the response of a new generation.
Knight: In terms of consuming entertainment, the Gen-X and
Gen-Y demos live in an entirely different world than. While
they may watch television, they prefer to get their entertainment, news and information from other sources. This trend has
been building momentum for several years, and DR has a wonderful opportunity to take a leading position in this business.
What effect is online video having on this business?
Hawthorne: Primarily, online video is boosting Web site sell-through power. Marketers are wisely taking their TV assets and
populating their product sites with compelling video messages,
which have proven to boost conversion significantly. Additionally, video search engines are proliferating and becoming more
sophisticated, which, along with Google beginning to use video
in its search links, will give DRTV marketers a major online
sales boost.
