Direct response television can work to promote retail sales, despite its longstanding image of promoting products “not sold in stores,” Mike Medico, president of E&M Advertising Inc. told DMD attendees Wednesday.
Earlier this year, the agency ran a six-week flight of DRTV commercials for Thera-Patch Anti-Itch, an over-the-counter medicine. The spots helped raise retail sales by 600% from previous levels, as well as sell more than 160,000 units through the commercial — all for about $150,000.
The company was also able to cut down its telemarketing expenses from about $4 per call to about 80 cents per call by using an interactive voice response system, he noted.
Whether using DRTV for direct or retail sales, marketers should follow certain basic rules, said Jeff Wyant, the agency’s executive vice president. The product must have a broad appeal, it must be easily demonstrated on TV, it must be “attractively” (inexpensively) priced and it must be easy to fulfill.
Wyant noted that since the1950s, marketers have used $19.95 as a baseline price for DRTV commercials, noting that “$19.95 in the 1950s is probably $100 now.”
Medico conceded that DRTV does not work for everything. He told the story of a European company that wanted his agency to create a DRTV campaign for a spray people could use to cool themselves off in hot weather. “I told them it wouldn’t work, we ran a flight for them, and it tanked,” said Medico. “The product worked in Europe where there aren’t as many air conditioners as they are here.”
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