copies of his new album in an hour and each of those
buyers had the option of signing up to receive information about similar offers in the future.
Hoover’s “Dirty House”
DRTV effort featured
demos and several
decades of branding
elements
Changing content of DRTV
As the marketing landscape gets more crowded, even
some brands not traditionally interested in DRTV
have become attracted to its ability to broadcast their
story in a more sustained way than would be possible
through other channels. Acquirgy’s Brechner points to
brands like Keurig and Western Union, which have
made recent moves into DRTV, and believes that more
will be jumping into the area.
“DRTV is a superior medium to tell the story, dem-
onstrate a product, and provide testimonials, because
of the length of the commercial, whether one or two
minutes or 28.5-minute infomercials,” says Brechner,
He gives the example of a long-form DRTV
campaign Acquirgy recently rolled out for
“The extreme demos and Hoover’s Dirty
House drove home our unique selling prop-
osition, and the compelling consumer offer
drove both online and retail sales—exactly
what we planned,” says Brian Kirkendall,
VP of marketing for Hoover.
In this way, DRTV is an increasingly
attractive option even for marketers trying to reach
younger audiences who are more likely to be using the
latest-and-greatest smartphones and tablets.
Pat McLean, VP of digital brand strategies for Capi-
tal One, emphasizes that the bank’s goal through its
DRTV efforts has been, “to take this direct response
engagement model to a more affluent crowd in a
younger and more tech-savvy demographic.” He
adds that this audience “makes a statement about our
brand, that we’re digitally forward-thinking and have
the type of brand and type of product that is relevant
to that more tech-savvy crowd.”
Providing incentives valuable to prospects is vital
to ensuring this sort of engagement, according to
McLean. To create these incentives, Capital One be-
gan using Viggle, a loyalty program for television that
rewards individuals who check in to shows they’re
watching. The program launched earlier this year with
Capital One, along with Pepsi, Gatorade, and other
major brands serving as strategic partners. Viewers
watching various TV content are directed to unlock
additional Capital One content that’s related to what
they’re seeing.
“The best example of this interaction was during the
NCAA basketball tournament when we were heavy
in DRTV weight and had a heavy presence on Viggle,” says McLean. “As Viggle users interacted during
the NCAA, they were exposed to additional content
sponsored by Capital One [and] related to the tournament—trivia and so on—that allowed them to earn
more Viggle points.”
Weaving DRTV into standard
programming
Narrative DRTV ads with high production values can
also drive viewers to branded websites, continuing the
offline experience online. To engage prospects, marketing analytics firm Turn Inc. used a cliffhanger narrative for its high-profile B2B DRTV spot during the June
10 Mad Men season finale. Knowing the show’s audience includes marketing executives, Turn’s DRTV spot
also provided data for a case study on its cross-channel
analytics platform.
The spot, developed with Turn’s agency of record
Gyro, used a 1960s ad agency setting and a narrative
of a woman angrily shooting at her cheating man to
emphasize the 10-millisecond speed of Turn’s platform.
The spot directed viewers to the microsite turn.com/
decision where they could view three alternate endings to the spot, read a diary on the making of the film,
and were prompted to enter their email addresses to
receive further information.
“It’s hard to explain the technology of what we do
to someone who doesn’t understand it, so being able
to take the idea and apply it to something people can
identify in the real world makes that connection for
the customer,” says Paul Alfieri, VP of global marketing for Turn Inc.
