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As we wind down from ERA’s Annual Convention, it’s always fun to look back at some of the things that distinguish the direct-to-consumer industry from the greater retail and advertising industries at large. I recently conducted a Q&A with well-known DRTV host Beau Rials. When asked how he’d seen direct response evolve over the years, Rials had this to say:
It’s moved from the punch line of Madison Avenue to something they must do. Sure, people still make fun of infomercials and short-form spots, but a huge percentage of Fortune 500 companies now make them an integral part of their advertising plans. What’s great is, one week I’ll be shooting a show for some start-up’s dream product, and the next I’ll be selling $4,000 air conditioning systems for Mitsubishi Electric or $3,000 fish finders for Johnson Outdoor. In my 17 years, I’ve seen direct response advertising go from laughing stock to something you better be doing if you’re a VP of marketing.
Click here to read the entire Q&A article where Rials discusses a variety of aspects of the DRTV industry. As an on-air host, all of the products Rials represents must receive his stamp of approval. Being a DRTV or live shopping host can be a very daunting task. We’ve shown bloopers on the Electronic Retailer blog before, but the video below may take the cake.
(Note: Watch until the end if you have the time—the entire demo continues to snowball into tears and laughter!)
Just when I thought social websites, such as Facebook, were attempting to provide a little more security by tweaking the adjustability of the privacy settings, I began to take note of the sponsored link ads that creep along the sides of my homepage and the pages of other unsuspecting users and wonder just how confidential my profile actually is.
Facebook knows my name, my sex, my educational background, my e-mail address and my face, literally. But just because I am a 21-year-old female does not mean I need to visit a website to meet a man, apparently of my dreams, or review a casino’s website with hopes to spend the wads of cash the typical college student has hidden under his or her dorm mattress. Should I take offense to the airbrushed images flashing on the screen promoting weight loss? Hmm, who knew simply taking a weight-loss supplement could make any girl centerfold worthy?
Is it ethical for a website to require such user information and then allow its users to be hounded with what advertisers deem relevant to our being based solely on keywords found scattered amongst our online identities? And it’s not just social networking websites. My e-mail accounts are being bombarded with sponsored links containing keywords evidently scouted out from my e-mails as well. Sure, we have the choice to sign up for such services, but should we not have to give consent for our online personalities to be analyzed and solicited?
I can accept search engines tracking my queries and on some level understand and appreciate the effort and help. Facebook and Gmail stalking my habits and statistics could be seen in some circles as abusing their rights to my personal information, and I don’t think I can get on board with it. I suggest a course of action be taken towards more privacy before many decide it may be time to defriend Facebook and put Gmail in the trash.
Attend any marketing conference or read any industry trade publication and you’ll receive the same message: The consumer is in control. We’re told that we need to engage consumers on their turf, make brands interactive, and gasp—perhaps even include user-generated content into the marketing mix. What happens, however, if a brand tries to follow these new rules, but the results aren’t engaging, funny or propel a consumer to share the brand’s content with their family and friends?
Take the recent Coors Light commercials, which seem to have all the right moves. The commercials consist of YouTube-esque videos of stand up comics cracking unknowingly, lame jokes about Coors Light before cutting to a standard quick marketing message. I distinctly remember sitting on my friend Val’s couch as one of these commercials played. We all looked at each other with a gaze of slight embarrassment for Coors Light. It was at that point that the room decided the commercial actually made us want to go out and buy Miller Light, to which Val gleefully chanted, “It’s Miller Time!”
(Ed. Note: Only one I could find; most were even worse)
But for every Coors Light stinker, there’s usually another campaign that does get it right. A recent example that comes to mind is JC Penney’s back-to-school campaign that cleverly touches on the iconic ’80s film, “The Breakfast Club.” Considering my job involves marketing and advertising, I sometimes get a strange pleasure from watching my friends, family or even strangers watch, react to and discuss various forms of marketing without them knowing that I’m observing. This was the case with the JC Penney ads. During a recent trip to South Carolina, I watched my older cousin view the ad. I noticed that he paid particular attention to it. I mentioned that it seems to have lifted heavily from “The Breakfast Club.” His eyes lit up, “I knew that seemed familiar,” he said with a bit of excitement. When his wife entered the room, he told her that she’d like the JC Penney commercial next time it came on, which he was sure would be soon since we were watching MTV, the king of repetition.
A few days later, I was watching the Olympics with my little brother when the same JC Penney commercial aired. “I like this commercial a lot,” my brother said without any prompting from me. As the Olympics began to play again, my brother continued to sing the song from the commercial. Just for sh*ts and giggles, I decided to test him. “Do you remember what brand that song and commercial were for?” I asked. “Yeah, JC Penney. Why?” “No reason,” I said, thinking to myself that his answer would be exactly what executives at JC Penney would want to hear coming from a kid who was literally about to do his back-to-school shopping after vacation for his upcoming sophomore year of high school. JC Penney’s “Get That Look” campaign rounds off with an enticing, interactive micro-site. It’s almost like “The Breakfast Club” theme song that also plays in the commercial has an underlying message about JC Penney for consumers: Don’t you, forget about me…don’t don’t don’t dooon’t you, forget about me.
It’s true: Power 90 is not just for humans! To ensure we infuse some comedic muscle into this year’s “Retailers Rock”-themed Awards Gala—to be held on the evening of Tuesday, September 23—Under the Gun Productions has once again been busy creating another sock monkey short. Created by USC Film School Alum Rick Petry and Richard Perris, this year’s entry will be a follow up to last year’s short, “Home Shopping Havoc” that was part of “A Night At the Opera.” In case you missed it, below is the YouTube video for “Havoc!” See you at the show!
The ERA Minute is a new feature where ERA members can film marketing tips that will be distributed throughout all of ERA’s channels and social networking outlets. If you’re interested in making the next ERA Minute, contact Tom Quash at tquash@retailing.org. In this ERA Minute, Avalanche Creative Services’George Brianka explains why you should avoid playing it “safe” when creating a commercial.
There was much ado made about the current Olympics, specifically about how NBC was planning to bring the Olympics into the information age and allow advertisers to get an incredible insight into how viewers were using new media like broadband mobile and web video. I included several articles in the ERA e-Weekly Newsletter written by experts and intelligent pundits who know the space, and can probably rattle off a business plan to justify all of this in less than five minutes.
Of course all of that is very valuable, and as a marketing professional, I can thoroughly understand the appeal of getting more accurate and far-reaching metrics on how my media dollar is translating to eyeballs. It still tells me nothing about sales, but at least I can go to the suits and say that the share for our media buy was X points and that means Y households saw our messaging.
Since I am also a media consumer (and, germane to this rant, a sailor), I assumed that to back up this vast sell of the metrics, there would be a corresponding increase in the quality and breadth of coverage. This was based on the assertion that NBC was becoming a new media company and, while coverage on its broadcast and cable properties would be as it always has been (swimming, gymnastics, sprinting, volleyball and soccer); the doors of the vast media portal would swing wide to reveal a wealth of other sports including judo, rowing, badminton, sailing (of course), and the other 25 odd disciplines out there. Maybe NBC would even have deigned to cut away to the U.S. women’s sweep of the Saber competition in fencing once Michael Phelps had broken the Olympic record in his opening heat, or perhaps found a few seconds to squeeze in a mention that the all powerful Ben Ainsley had finished 10th in the Finn class in sailing. Even the synchronized swimming aficionados would have the opportunity to watch their event in its entirety! That is, if they couldn’t find some paint that was drying (just kidding!).
This would be the most complete Olympics coverage ever undertaken by a media entity since the invention of radio; a shining beacon of media convergence, television, the Internet and mobile, marching in lock step into the New Media Future—a beacon throwing out a light illuminating the Brave New World of convergence, offering consumers unparalleled access to information and a depth of content that would make the mind swim and sate even the most glutinous Olympic appetite! A glowing moment in media history that shows the whole world that America not only embraces the world and enjoys competing in it, but THIS is how you cover the Olympics, damnit! Take that, BBC!
And yet, as is so often true, the execution fell far short of the promise. Looking at the TV listing, I was not surprised to see soccer, volleyball, swimming, beach volleyball…and on CNBC on the Saturday morning of the Olympics’ opening week, believe it or not, paid programming. Meanwhile, the sailing video I watched live at 3 in the morning was just the Chinese media feed (not terrible camera work by the way) without any commentary or added value from NBC. (more…)
In this interesting exchange, Dennis Miller humorously engages George Carlin in a discussion about advertising and the American public. *Warning: Video contains some strong language and opinions.
On September 22, 2008, at ERA’s Annual Convention, Dennis Miller will interview Joe Abruzzese, Discovery Communications’ president of advertising sales. Click here to register and become part of this groundbreaking event. I’ll see you in Vegas!
Last week I visited Honeyshed, a fresh reinvention of home shopping that elevates products and brands to the level of fetish with an irreverent mix of urban sass and scantily clad, er, lass. We’ll be covering Honeyshed in a feature article in Electronic Retailer to coincide with a major marketing launch in November. In the meantime, check out their sizzle (or is it fo shizzle?) reel and if you’re interested in advertising on Honeyshed, contact Beth LeManach at Lemanach@honeyshed.com or Blaine Pate at Pate@honeyshed.com.
As we wind down from ERA’s Annual Convention, it’s always fun to look back at some of the things that distinguish the direct-to-consumer industry from the greater retail and advertising industries at large. I recently conducted a Q&A with well-known DRTV host Beau Rials. When asked how he’d seen direct response evolve over the years, Rials had this to say:
Just when I thought social websites, such as Facebook, were attempting to provide a little more security by tweaking the adjustability of the privacy settings, I began to take note of the sponsored link ads that creep along the sides of my homepage and the pages of other unsuspecting users and wonder just how confidential my profile actually is.
Attend any marketing conference or read any industry trade publication and you’ll receive the same message: The consumer is in control. We’re told that we need to engage consumers on their turf, make brands interactive, and gasp—perhaps even include user-generated content into the marketing mix. What happens, however, if a brand tries to follow these new rules, but the results aren’t engaging, funny or propel a consumer to share the brand’s content with their family and friends?
There was much ado made about the current Olympics, specifically about how NBC was planning to bring the Olympics into the information age and allow advertisers to get an incredible insight into how viewers were using new media like broadband mobile and web video. I included several articles in the ERA e-Weekly Newsletter written by experts and intelligent pundits who know the space, and can probably rattle off a business plan to justify all of this in less than five minutes.
In this interesting exchange, 
Last week I visited