DRTV Media Buying Blog

Tracking the use of online campaigning by this year’s presidential candidates is seemingly a loss cause. The prevalence of social networking, viral video and blogs makes it nearly impossible to gauge, until later and perhaps after-the-fact, the impact the Internet has had (or will have) on this year’s election.

(Even four years ago, would anyone have known or even imagined a CNN presidential debate in which Facebook or You Tube figured so prominently?)

A recent report by ClickZ.com says that the use of measurable online campaign methods, such as paid display advertising, is on the rise. Since about January 2007, presidential candidates have been using the Internet and Internet ad space as means of reaching out to potential voters.

The amount of campaign dollars put towards the online effort is still low in comparison to traditional efforts such as broadcast advertising and television ads.

According to a recent article in the Hollywood Reporter, the Writers Guild of America strike isn’t harshly affecting TV and the networks.

Instead, the article reports that television advertisers are sticking to their guns and standing by the networks. In fact, while most advertisers had the option to back out of up to 50% of their upfront purchase in late January, few actually acted on that option.

The WGA website also claims that even if advertisers and media buyers requested their money back, it wouldn’t be a significant issue for these TV networks. In the article, MPG Senior VP Group Account Director Jason Janefsky, is quoted as saying, “The networks don’t care if advertisers exercise options or take money back. They can spin the inventory for a higher unit cost.” In other words, no skin off the networks’ backs.

Additionally, the networks are saving, from a financial standpoint, on all those cancelled writers contracts, along with the elimination of its non-writing staff. Despite the writers strike, now in its third month, the networks continue to move forward with a positive outlook and healthy hopes for the future.

It’s no secret that the proliferation of services like TiVo has changed the way viewers access and “digest” television.

As a response to this still-evolving trend, TiVo has announced that it’s formed the Interactive Direct Response Advertising Group, an entity that aims not only to help the drtv community fully understand the challenges of advertising in the age of DVR, but, more importantly, to offer real and viable alternative advertising solutions to the DR community.

In a press release, the company acknowledged what many of us already know: TiVo and DVRs lessen the need to “channel surf,” thus potentially lowering viewership for infomercials and other direct response television advertisements. (We know that many, if not most, viewers fast-forward through commercials.)

Relevant solutions?
What’s positive about the formation of this group is that it promises to find and present valuable, timely and workable (in other words, real) solutions for the portions of the direct response market that are impacted by this growing trend.

The DR community’s goal vis-a-vis TiVo and DVR is to “relate to customers directly from the remote control.” One proposed solution includes TiVo’s Interactive Advertising Platform which allows viewers to use their remote controls to click on tags that appear over television commercials in the Ad Showcase area if and when they want to request additional information or view special offers.

For infomercial advertisers, this change in approach presents a unique opportunity to create customized, easily-trackable and actionable offers specifically for the TiVo viewer.

The big misconception in online media buying is that you can’t reach Boomers via the Internet. In fact, Baby Boomers make up one-third of the 195 million web users in the United States, according to JupiterResearch. Additionally, infomercial ad buyers targeted Boomers with close to 5 billion dollars in ads in 2004, out of 13 billion spent in web advertising. So don’t think that Boomers aren’t online and that they reject technology. Nothing could be further from the truth.

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, over half (54%) of 60-69 year-olds go online, and 72% of 51-59 year-olds surf the net. Further, studies show that Boomers spend more money online that the average web user, yet they’re still the most underserved audience on the net. Therefore, if you want to serve this demographic, consider the following.

Create a network. Boomers crave social networks. Sites like FaceBook.com and MySpace.com target younger people, and LinkedIn.com focuses on business professionals. While Boomers do participate in such online social networks, they usually discover that these sites have little to offer them. If you want Boomers to be a regular visitor to your site, offer them a place where they can connect with each other and explore topics of interest to them. It may be helpful for you to check out a new site, TeeBeeDee, tbd.com, which is specifically designed for Boomers and is positioned as a Facebook for Boomers.

Offer the right information. Boomers are most interested in such topics as alternative health, entertainment, finance, health, hearth and home, hobbies and fitness, and travel. Boomers are frequent and engaged online users, so make sure your site has the kind of information they are most interested in. This generation is also going through a life stage filled with lots of tough issues, including retirement, investment planning, and healthcare. If your product or service can help Boomers better plan for these life transitions, then you need to prominently state so on your site and offer lots of information on the topic.

Go easy on the multi-media effects. Boomers don’t want a web page to be overwhelming. Therefore, limit how much “stuff” you have going on the screen. Remember, Boomers don’t like to multi-task, so don’t try to pull their attention away from the core information they came to your site for.

Of the people who went to NBC.com to watch an episode of their favorite show online, forty-eight percent of users viewed a stream of at least one segment of “Heroes,” the site’s top show. Interestingly, NBCU’s research showed that thirty-five percent of the users went online to sample “Heroes” for the first time, and that ninety-six percent of them continued watching the series, both online and over traditional TV. So in this case, online viewing of shows is actually prompting more live TV viewing. NBCU is utilizing this data to pitch clients on a “360 degree” package that allows advertisers to reach and further engage viewers both through conventional TV and online.

One other interesting pattern revealed by the NBCU team was a slight increase in online viewing of NBC Rewind shows during lunchtime on workdays, suggesting that online drtv might be producing a new form of primetime. However, the study also shows that the heaviest usage of the site continues to be at nighttime, during conventional TV primetime hours.

A recent study by iProspect and JupiterResearch that looks at the influence of offline channels on online search behavior had some very interesting findings that helped confirm what I suspected – that offline media channels are having a major impact on online searches and online purchase behavior. The study found that 39% of online searches that are influenced by offline media channels such as DRTV, print and radio advertising ultimately make a purchase. Results from the study also showed that 67% of the online search population is driven to search by offline media channels.

This data from iProspect confirms what people in the direct response advertising industry have been noticing for several years, that offline media channels such as direct response TV, radio and print are clearly influencing a staggering percentage of online searches and sales. The study clearly demonstrates that marketers who are relying on online advertising only are not harnessing the synergies that exist between search and offline advertising channels. I don’t feel this is a short term trend. I expect the influence of offline advertising on online search will continue to grow. We’ve worked with several Internet retailers that were able to take their business to the next level by adding direct response television to their media mix.

What’s more important: broadcast TV or high-speed Internet access?

Not surprisingly, broadcasters choose TV. And they launched a lobbying blitz Monday to prevent technology companies from potentially causing interference on over-the-air television signals in a quest to hook up more people to the Internet.

“Only in Washington would we have to make the case for interference-free TV,” said David K. Rehr, president of the National Assn. of Broadcasters.

Microsoft Corp., Google Inc., Intel Corp. and other technology companies want the Federal Communications Commission to let them use vacant TV channels, known as “white spaces,” for a new generation of wireless, Web-surfing devices. FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin and many lawmakers see those channels — ranging from about a third of the TV airwaves in Los Angeles and other major cities to three-fourths in rural areas — as an untapped resource that could boost the country’s poor international ranking for accessibility of broadband Internet service.

“The promise that this spectrum holds for bringing broadband to more Americans is too great to ignore,” said Scott Blake Harris, counsel to the White Spaces Coalition, a group formed by the technology companies to press the issue. Use of the airwaves would be free, similar to Wi-Fi, and the group said devices could share the airwaves with TV stations without interference.

The proposal, which the FCC is scheduled to consider next month, has sparked a major battle between the two industries.

Broadcasters zealously guard access to the airwaves set aside decades ago for television. They started airing TV ads in Washington against the proposal Monday and brought in industry executives to lobby the FCC and Congress. With a federal mandate that stations air only digital signals starting in early 2009, broadcasters said this was no time for risky experiments. About 20% of households receive only over-the-air television.

Though interference causes static or ghostly images on traditional analog TV, the effect on digital signals is worse — the picture breaks up or freezes.

source:LA Times

Peter Koeppel is Founder and President of Koeppel Direct, a leader in DRTV direct response television, online, print and radio media buying, marketing and campaign management. With a Wharton MBA and over 25 years of marketing and advertising experience, Peter has helped Fortune 500 companies, small businesses and entrepreneurs develop direct marketing infomercial campaigns to increase profits.

Eventually, it all comes back to the Internet, where old media is bound to converge with new. “Quite literally, this is the future,” Bailey says.
 
Considering buying a print advertisement? Write a blog, instead. Thinking about radio? Try recording your own podcast. The Internet even presents a world of new opportunities for small businesses that are looking into direct response television (DRTV), according to Koeppel, as approximately half of people who are online are watching TV at the same time, and most have broadband connections for watching video. “If you don’t have the money to run your DRTV spot,” he says, “you can always run it on your Web site.”
 
Just because something’s online, though, doesn’t make it a good idea. Like standard print and television ads, many standard Internet advertising vehicles, such as banner ads, are quickly becoming dated. “People aren’t clicking on banners as much as in the past,” Koeppel says. He therefore recommends investing instead in search engine marketing, buying keywords and search terms via services such as Google AdWords.
 
In the end, it all comes back to engagement, according to Patrick. “It’s about taking a static form of advertising and really looking at how interactive you can make it,” she says. Run a print ad. Make a TV commercial. Build a Web site. Just make sure that all roads lead back to the cutting edge.

In this segment of Ask the Experts, we discuss the price ranges of mass advertising / media buying with one of the leading direct response and media buying agents of Koeppel Direct, Peter Koeppel. Peter points out that print, radio, and even television can be affordable mediums for advertising if you’re going about it the correct way-by using an integrated media-buying strategy. He also discusses the necessities of a good website and what you can expect to pay for website design and upkeep

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