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Poland Spring and their agency Media Horizons tapped m3digital to help them launch their new DRTV campaign. It’s the first spot they’ve tested in years so we went with a proven template: spokesperson looking right into camera, early mention of the offer, graphics and icons that hint at how useful this product will be and, of course, a clear compelling call to action. Hit play, sit back and hydrate on this.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

With Robert Wagner as competition, we had to reach deep into the DRTV tool box and came up looking better than Bob Vila in the ’80s.  (Bob’s salad days.)

Last week I saw an animatic being aired live. On one of the big nets I think. Maybe ESPN. An animatic is a moving storyboard. Basically, it’s a series of hand-drawn stills with voiceovers, music and titles. The remarkable thing was this animatic was from a multi-billion dollar consumer company.

At Time Life Books back in the ’80s we would spend about $130K per commercial and produce 2 or 3 per new campaign. After a few of your $130K beauties goes down in flames you eagerly begin a search for a way to insure your success before sinking all that budget into a doomed concept. So I suggested to one of our agencies – I think it was Wunderman – that we test the animatic on air before producing it. They rejected the idea saying research groups would give us better information. I recall Andy Jones going on about “mind mapping” and such. What consumer would respond to a “fake cartoon commercial” anyway?

Forget research groups and one on ones, I said. They’re not indicative of what a live test will yield. With research you just waste your budget twice. Being the client, I prevailed. So we tested 4 different creative executions for a new book series Time Life was preparing to launch. And the CPO results came in quite reliably. There were enough responses in each test cell for a confident rollout. So we produced the top 2 winning spots and aired them as usual.

Turned out, the animatics OUTPERFORMED the actual productions! Test after test, this was a consistent finding and a disturbing reality to creative teams everywhere. We figured the novelty of an animatic was lifting response and that it would fall off after some time. Nope. Today, animatics still deliver accurate results and often outperform the actual productions. And with better graphics programs and talented editors (like ours, of course!), the animatics look pretty impressive.

Makes the branding folks crazy.

This spot sold Storyreaders via TV but more importantly acted as broadcast advertising support for a rollout at Walmart and Kmart.

I was working at the Time Inc Corporate Circulation division as a copywriter. It was 1980.  I was in the lobby of the Time Life Building waiting for a lunch date and wearing a suit that, today, will get you 2-4 years in the fashion big house. Dick Munro, the new president of Time Inc exited the elevator bank with my lunch date, Bob Fisler. Bob introduced me to Dick.  As a rookie Time Incer, this was monumental. Dick Munro! My career was sure to take off. Bob said, “Dick, this is Jack Maley, just joined us in Corp Circ.” (the division responsible for magazine subscription marketing). Dick looked at me and my lapels and said, “Corp Circ?” Thought for a moment, realized what we did, smiled and yelled, “Yours Free!” And left.

That’s what we do. We serve up “Yours Free!”

Offer is king, as we in the biz regularly remind clients. Clever creative gets attention. Precision media taps the right buyer on the shoulder. But the closer in this equation is the offer. Which is a fact today’s enthusiastic digital marketers must keep close to the keyboard.

The explosion of internet marketing will continue to deliver tremendous profits for nimble, savvy companies. The real potential lies in merging today’s tech power with the proven methodology of direct marketing.

Digital marketing is really direct marketing in hipper clothes. Zippy analytics tools and micro-targeting will yield exponential results when the basics of direct are at the foundation of your digital program.

Basics like product exclusivity (even a slight tweak will help), urgency and deadlines, ease of response, clarity of offer, testing offers and creative, copywriting that knows which words compel the reader to respond, free gifts (more relevant the better), “only available here and now” bonuses, and testing offers and creative and, after the test results are read, test some more.

Of course, the “basics” of this marketing discipline can fill volumes.  Which is why you need to be supported by a team experienced in this fine art.

Direct marketing experience + digital delivery and precision = happy P&L.

Couldn’t be more direct.

Some nice special effects by a talented graphics editor from around the corner.  Ah, the advantages of working in Silicon Alley.

Road Runner offers a spyware program that hopes to increase the value prop of the service.   Did it work?  According to the TWC affiliates, it was great.  Not hard-core direct marketing science but we’ll take it.

Here are some quick highlights of scores of fun, informative and brand-enhancing TV spots we created for a great client – Road Runner High Speed Online and Time Warner Cable.  It was an adrenaline rush every time we received the Creative Brief.  And the work reflected this passion.