TV advertising is already in a vise grip, as client spending moves to the interweb, event marketing and other areas. Now, this news from Ad Age:
Don’t be so quick to sneer at that late-night Ginsu-knife ad. It likely represents the future of TV advertising.
Direct-response TV experts boldly predict that in five or 10 years all TV advertising will be some form of direct-response as mainstream marketers seek greater return on investment and look to switch to a metric that reflects how engaged an audience is with an ad rather than sheer number of eyeballs reached. And as the analytics for measuring DTRV ads are applied to conventional buys, more marketers will start to appreciate the merits of knowing whether or not an ad was on the mark.
“People think that direct response is all about pills and potions and get-rich-quick schemes,” said Michael Kokernak, CEO of Backchannel Media, a DRTV specialty agency in Boston. “But direct response is really just a measure of human engagement. You’re going to find it will be the only way TV is bought and sold.”
Direct people are famous for predicting that direct is the future of advertising. But the problem with direct, especially direct TV is this: you can’t sell someone who isn’t paying attention.
And direct people don’t know creative.