Our social media video series (http://www.bobvserp.com/) for a client called RedPrairie features a beautiful and slightly off-balanced research associate named Sally Frockmeister.  She was recently spotted on the new Louie CK show, video clip below.  We think she is simply doing more research on older men to better understand why they make such addle-minded business procurement decisions.

Click here to view the embedded video.

You, like many other marketing execs, may be under the illusion that producing good-looking, “don’t get me fired” DRTV spots start at $60K and up.

Well, they sort of do but there are ways to create an effective spot, get orders, promote your brand and keep your dignity and your job.

It’s the $25K solution.  Here’s how to spend $25K wisely.

• First, hire people who have done over 800 DRTV spots and have an office at 1123 Broadway, let’s call them “m3digital”:  $5,000
• Second, pick up footage your branding agency overcharged you to shoot and give it to m3digital.
• Third, shoot a spokesman/woman against green screen with the new RED Camera system: $10,000
• Fourth, edit the spokesperson footage together with the brand agency’s overpriced footage:$7,500
• Fifth and final step, master your shiny new :60 DRTV spot and conduct a 2-week test: $2,500

TOTAL: $25,000

Call now, 1 212 366 6123.  That’s 1 212 366 6123

This link will take you to a product/software demo that we built for a client that breaks down a rather sophisticated product into small delicious bites. Product Demo Microsite

And given that the “demo” is one of the key 4 ingredients to marketing success, this tool should be fully explored.

(Yes, that’s me in the demo doing my best imitation of Apple’s “1984″ TV spot.)

Click here to view the embedded video.

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.

I posted the blog below in May … then yesterday (June 30) I was walking past “Pieters” when I watched workers carting off chairs and tables.  Seems “Pieters” went belly up.  Out of business.  I’m just sayin’ …

Bankrupted by design

ORIGINAL BLOG
Say you opened an Irish pub. On the Upper West Side of Manhattan. In a prime location near Lincoln Center. Would you call your Irish pub “Pieter’s?” Pieter’s. May as well call it Dieter’s. Hire bartenders who wear those Teutonic rectanglar shaped glasses and black turtlenecks.  Pieter’s, the Irish Pub? Com’on.

As the executive in charge of naming the business you wouldn’t do that would you? But Pieter’s the Irish pub has been at 67th and Columbus for nearly 25 years. Although, I never set foot in there because I didn’t know it was an Irish pub. Plus I had no interest in pigging out on Knockwurst while knoshing on Wittgenstein at “Pieter’s.”

Alas, I was mistaken.  And I’m blaming the graphics team at “Pieter’s.” You see, check out the picture of the pub above. Says “Pieter’s” right?  Hmmm … or does it say “Peter’s?” That tiny curly thing attached to the first “e” in Peter’s looks like an “i.” But it’s not.  It’s a random curly thing. For years I thought the curly thing was an “i.” And I dutifully avoided the place because, I mean, who gets together with friends from out of town and says, “Let’s go to that pretentious German pub around Lincoln Center.  You know, the one where the Sprockets hang out.” Nobody says that.

That little curly thing completely alters the perception of ones potential experience at Peter’s. 4 inches of errant paint. And that’s all it takes to torpedo your campaign. A massive spend on creative, media and fulfillment all brought to its knees by a ill-advised flick of the wrist.

Happens everyday. Be sure you have experienced pros protecting your Pieter.

Click here to view the embedded video.

DRTV is a ruthless teacher.  You win no votes for style or cleverness.  If your spot doesn’t convert a viewer into a buyer, you failed.  No matter how great your graphics or how funny your concept, if the CPO doesn’t deliver you cut bait as swiftly as possible. To paraphrase Kyle Reese from The Terminator: “DRTV can’t be bargained with, it can’t be reasoned with.  It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse or fear.”

Today’s lean times makes this a particularly valuable lesson as there is precious little room for failure.

My career began in a recession.  As I sat in my first office on the 30th floor of the Time Life Building in midtown Manhattan overlooking Radio City Music Hall, I could watch the silent buzz of the city 300 feet below.  On the minds of all those little dots down below were the Ayatollah Khomeini and his “students” as they held American hostages, interest rates which were at a Sopranoesque 20% and even Prince Charles was in the news as he had just checked into a Florida hospital with a serious sunburn (which, today, has likely developed into skin cancer).  The year was 1980 and Judy the Operator from Time Magazine was about to shake up the world of DRTV.

Judy was my first DRTV experience as a young copywriter for Time Inc’s corporate circulation division.  The ad agency – Wunderman Ricotta and Klein – created Judy. I was a minor player from the client side helping to pull the creative together.  Judy went on to become a major force in DRTV. She gave Time magazine a neat, sanitary vehicle in which to hawk unseemly things like premiums and discounted offers.  This spawned the term “Judy Wrap” (not an urban beat but a way to ‘wrap’ your offer around your messaging).  The Brooks Brothers draped gentlemen in ad sales loathed Judy. The calculator-carrying circulation people adored her.  Judy was like Billy Mays with a poofy doo from the Connecticut Junior League who single-handedly morphed DRTV from the slicer/dicer world to the province of respected brands. Lesson #1: offer is king.

The Judy experience launched me into DRTV and for 30 years I have planned, created, directed, cut and shipped over 800 DRTV masters to scores of clients and hundreds of TV stations.

Some DRTV Dos and Don’ts

In DRTV your spot either works or it doesn’t so you learn something each time … like if you want to use celebrity talent, be creative when structuring your compensation offer.  We booked Joe Montana for a Sports Illustrated commercial with a handshake and promise of a modest fee payment. The payment was very reasonable, but Joe’s 3rd wife was not.  She was an actress who wanted to be in the commercial. We unwittingly turned her down. Through some SI arm-twisting we later learned it was she who forced Joe to drop out of the spot at midnight, 8 hours before the cameras were set to roll. We suddenly had a crew, a media schedule to fill and thousands of subscriptions to sell and no quarterback.

We figured the only QB who could replace Joe was Jim McMahon leading to this insane 6am phone call to his agent, Steve Zucker:  ”Yea, hi, Jack Maley here from Sports Illustrated.  Would Jim consider being in a commercial for SI?”  Steve replies “Yes, Jim loves SI.”  I press forward, “How about … today? Starting around lunch?”   We were shooting in LA and were prepared to fly Jim in on the next flight from Chicago.  Turns out, Jim was at a celebrity golf tournament … in LA … and was staying at a hotel across the highway from our hotel. The sports – and subscription – gods were with us.  We cut a clever yet McMahon-advantaged fee plus royalty deal and five hours later Jim showed up, sunglasses and all, and did a remarkable job. SI rate base met.

Other random lessons that come to mind … 60s clear better than 120s but 120s bring in a better customer … never schedule your shoot when a major snowstorm is due to blanket the city … don’t ask Dick Butkus to do anything that involves bending his knees … at minimum tease your offer upfront  … don’t let a branding agency buy your DR media … cartoons will fail 9 times out of 10 … no time frame performs like the first quarter … Bob Vila, Fran Tarkenton and David Oreck can sell anything … a real person looking straight into camera is the way to go if you have only one shot at making your spot work … don’t assume your viewer is listening, tell your tale with titles too … Lyle Alzado was a sunny soul and there’s no way those massive pipes were natural … don’t vary from the tried and true when creating spots that sell music – it will fail … humor works as long as it’s, well, funny … “offer builds” work if there’s substance to the build … and always test, test and test some more.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Then came branded DRTV

After working on Time Inc’s famous titles, my first big brand beyond publishing was Fidelity Investments.  In 1987 I was the Creative Director at Kobs & Brady in Chicago (just bought by Bates who was then swallowed by Saatchi) when a pre-world domination Howard Draft snagged a DRTV assignment from Fidelity Investments.  To my knowledge they had never tried DRTV and, like all brands, were worried the medium best known for the Chia Pet would sully their image.  So we created a spot where the benefits of Fidelity’s Magellan Fund were presented aggressively enough to make the phones ring but stayed true to the trusted Fidelity brand.  We chose humor to soften the impact of this then-exotic instrument called a “mutual fund.” The approach worked as thousands called toll free to get in on the Peter Lynch-led investment vehicle. (Alas, in every bubble there comes a bursting.  This success begat a follow-up campaign that was stillborn because, on the day we landed in Boston to present the storyboards to Fidelity, the stock market dropped 508 points on what is known as “Black Monday.” There are some things that even brilliant creative can’t overcome.)

HBO, Montgomery Ward, and Bristol-Myers meet Flowbee and the Thigh Master

Once some pioneer brands like HBO, Montgomery Ward, and Tupperware kicked the DRTV door open there was no turning back. Especially when big pharma burst in.  Pharma DTC marketing was rocketing with DRTV a massive part of their lead generation strategy.  They changed everything. DRTV were no longer scarlet letters.  Budgets exploded.  In a sign of making it to the adult’s table, DRTV spots were now regularly shot on 35MM film.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Through the 90s every category got into the act:  telecom like those non-stop MCI friends and family and 1 800 Collect spots, pharma, Internet IPs, credit cards, insurance … everyone was creating and buying direct response television. The industry boomed and with it came many pretenders, namely branding agencies.

Click here to view the embedded video.

At Time Life we employed the top DRTV media buying experts like Wunderman, Eicoff and Shain Colavito Pensabene. Occasionally an “image agency” like The Richards Group, or Oglivy or Geer Dubois would want to create a spot and, to make a little profit, buy the media.  No doubt there’s real talent at these shops, especially creative.  So the spots were well conceived and executed.   The media buying, on the other hand, was a disaster every time.  In the unforgiving world of remnant time, you can’t beat a hard-core DRTV media buying agency at their game no matter how much “media leverage” you have in the marketplace.  Unless you have daily experience negotiating rates, unless you have the right analytics tools and unless you know where the latest hot stations and markets are, you will fail at buying DRTV.  That lesson alone cost clients millions.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Eventually and inevitably, brand managers for packaged goods companies were soon jumping in with both paws. We created a campaign to help Mars Inc and their Pedigree brand find and serve the new puppy owner.  Across every category, including bug sprays (extermination below), brand managers were either exploring for themselves or being directed by management to “check into direct marketing.” True old school direct marketing is a real challenge for the package goods guys to employ.  They aren’t paid or promoted to recognize the long-term benefits a solid DM program will yield.  It’s also a big cultural shift to go from waving Nielsen ratings in the conference room to calculating the lifetime value of a customer hunched over a spreadsheet.

Click here to view the embedded video.

But online advertising is rapidly changing the game.  Online advertising IS direct marketing in hipper clothing.   The next few years will see DRTV migrate online and to your mobile. But despite the fancy digital tools and tactics the core principles of success will remain the same.

Wrap it up, Jack.  Give me an easy-to-remember acronym

Well, combining my direct experience over the past 120 quarters with what I’ve seen and heard throughout the industry, to have the best chance at DRTV success, think SODA.

SODA … Story

“Everything begins with a story.” Quincy Jones told me one evening over dinner at his house.  Robert Blake had just finished his soup and went home leaving us with a jaw-dropping story to carry us through dinner.  It’s the same with music, with film and with advertising:  start with a great story. Even if you have just 30 or 60 seconds, be sure there’s a riveting story at the heart of the spot.  The story can be the frustration felt by Verizon DSL customers who then had an epiphany and switched to Road Runner … or one about parents being able to send their kids to college because Fidelity Investments helped them save for it … or about retirees who successfully pulled off a reverse mortgage and now live cash-rich and worry-free. Always tell a good story.

Click here to view the embedded video.

SODA … Offer

Your offer must elicit “Wow!”

Your job is to have the viewer, while sunk into the sofa in a sugar haze, say to him/herself, “Seriously, how can they give away that much?”  If your offer doesn’t do this, you begin the DRTV process with one big hand tied behind your back.  Push the client to create the most compelling offer they can.  Test offers.  Test crazy offers.  You just may be shocked at how high an incredible offer can lift your response rate to pay for said crazy offer.

SODA … Demo

At the risk of sounding like Professor Obvious, TV spots are shown on TV. Many people forget this. Or don’t take full advantage of it.

Video is the most dramatic medium for demonstrating your product. So show it in action. Do circus tricks with it.  Animate it.  If it’s a service you offer like a wireless or cable connection, an insurance policy or a medication, use people and/or vignettes to do your demo work.  There’s always a way to show your stuff.  But show it.

SODA … Action

The old call to action.  This doesn’t simply mean to say, “Call or go online now!” as many times as possible.   Or make the URL flash in big yellow type.  Yes, you need to tell them what to do but you have to give them a good reason to do it and do it now. Like with an expiring offer, or maybe the time is now because of external circumstances (tax day is near, holiday season, legislation in congress may soon take this away).

Oh, one more acronym:  KISS.  Keep it simple, stupid.  Don’t feel compelled to amortize the cost of every second of airtime by packing in as many features and benefits as possible. As Salieri told Mozart, “There are simply too many notes. I can speak for the Emperor. You make too many demands on the royal ear.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Recessions will come and go, times get fat and lean, but always, at the core of it all, is a great idea, well executed.  (With a real DRTV media buying agency placing your spots!)

Sound bigger on the Sports Illustrated Football Phone

Anne Holland’s Which Test Won
http://whichtestwon.com

Anne Holland’s simple little site brings you a new test every week that pits headlines against each other, tests body copy, offer copy, even the accent of the AVO on a website (forget the World Cup, the Brit v Yank accent test is where the action is).  These tests are what direct response marketers have been doing for decades and form the foundation of every successful campaign.

But people new to direct often overlook testing or dismiss it as too expensive. Especially when it comes to DRTV. This is a mistake. You have to test. Test your offer, your messaging, your media buy, your graphics and visuals. Test everything you can think of. Testing will pay substantial dividends. Testing will likely save your campaign … unless your crystal ball is particularly prescient.

At Time Inc we tested constantly and obsessively.  It was an inspiring test lab to grow up in. I saw thousands of tests. We tested the color of the “Reply By” sticker on the front of a Time Magazine direct mail envelope and got a 12% lift.

I saw premiums deliver 100-200% lifts in response for Sports Illustrated (topped by the campy and amazingly profitable Sneaker and Football Phones).

A small change in the headline of an online display ad can turn it to profitability.

Test your messaging – so in addition to promising that home delivery of spring water will ease the transporting (aka ‘lugging’) of water from the market to your home test a version that promises your family’s health will improve by having spring water accessible 24/7.

On your next campaign, think through how many different tests you can reasonably and reliably test. An experienced direct marketer can help you step up an efficient test matrix.

If there’s a secret or silver bullet to marketing, especially ROI marketing (isn’t everything?) it’s testing.

Ready, aim, test.

Starring in a major Hollywood blockbuster can now be done without first attending rehab. IVI Media is developing a delightful kiosk for the likes of Universal Studios and Disney and more where you and the family can pick a movie, enter the kiosk, perform your roles with passion and exit with a DVD of the movie with YOU in the starring role. Next up: pre-packaged denials and compromising photos on TMZ.

Check out the whole story in this pitch book we just created for them.

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevancy even less.”
— General Eric Shinseki, 2003

The inexorable change that’s upending marketing is accelerating.  The magazine and newspaper industries were decimated by this force.  I don’t mean the internet tsunami. That’s just the weapon. What’s wielding the weapon is the revolution of consumer choice.

“The digital world has so disrupted the business models of newspapers, radio, television, music and even Hollywood that the yin and yang of mass media and mass marketing are flying apart. We are in the midst of total collapse of the media infrastructure we have taken for granted for 400 years.”
— Bob Garfield, AdAge

The newspapers and magazines were not killed by a byte on their net. They were felled by old fashioned consumer choice.  They bled out because their readers chose a better way to get their news, place their classifieds, and hear about the newest products and services.  Certainly, the old media understands the concept of consumer choice. But they didn’t get just HOW MUCH choice and control the consumer demanded.  And not at the rate of change that it was happening.

I worked at Time Inc and can imagine the end-of-my-career laughter if I looked around the conference room at budget time and suggested, “5 year plan?  How’s this for a 5 year plan: every magazine in this room except People will lose half their rate base and 40% will cease to exist in 5 years.”

The big old media companies couldn’t move far enough.  And they couldn’t move fast enough. Apparently, they were not too big to flail.

According to the AMA, B2C marketers are planning to devote nearly one-fifth of their marketing budgets to social media in the next five years. In addition, growing B2B spending on social media is rising and lines up with the general goals of B2B marketers: customer relationship management and brand-building, which respondents claim will be the highest growth areas in the next year. Social marketing, with its strength in boosting brand engagement and loyalty, is an effective medium for both purposes.

That’s why Darren Ernest (above, right) is the most important man in town. He’s was one of the original SEO guys at a major NYC ad agency (Ogilvy’s neo) and is at the center of today’s biggest SEO and social media campaigns.  And he’s m3digital’s go-to social media guy. Darren is the center attraction at our meetings.  Clients talk about DRTV, print, maybe DM and then with wide-eyed interest turn to Darren and ask, “What’s the latest? Have you figured out how to make social media accountable?” He’s got the Wii controller while we fiddle with the Nintendo joy stick.

As for calculating an ROI on your social spend, the tools and metrics are getting better.  Here’s a good breakdown of the latest ways to measure your investment in social: http://www.socialtimes.com/2010/02/social-media-metrics/

ROI is the word for years to come. And as direct marketers – who have always understood that the consumer calls the shots, that ads that can’t prove their value are failures and that nimble flexibility is the key to profitability – we are thrilled to be square in the middle of this unprecedented change.

Vive la revolution de choix.

Simplifying things down to their bare essentials helps to clarify.  Simplify to clarify.   Like SODA.  It’s an acronym I use to stress the 4 essentials of a compelling direct marketing TV spot.  The first “S” – a story, every spot needs one.  ”O” is for offer, pretty obvious in the DR biz.  ”D” is for demo.  It’s television, show it in action.  And if you’re selling a service, demo it through people.  And finally “A” is for the mandatory call to Action.

As today’s marketing tactics evolve from the push advertising of old to pull (with a little push), social networks and their style of communication has become the way.   So instead of creating spots and blasting them through the airwaves at an unsuspecting and elusive marketplace, we’re now creating microsites around topics and issues.  Here is where your customers are meeting to get and share information with like-minded consumers/people.

So I’ve got another acronym to ease my porous cranial filing system:  CCCC.  Create content connect consumer.

Exhibit A:  www.bobvserp.com

We have just completed such a microsite for a client called RedPrairie.  They sell supply chain software against ERP behemoths like SAP and Oracle, among others.  The challenge is to get the attention of a time-pressed target audience which, because of the scope of a RedPrairie installation, can range from the lowest-level IT guy to the CEO.  We also need to communicate a clear message:  that it can be a long, painful process when you invite the ERPs of the world into your house.

So we created an absurd Institute called the Best of Breed Institute.  Or BOBI.  The BOBI is staffed by lunatic-fringe researchers who study ERP clients to see just how ERPs have been able to hold and enslave their customers despite massive cost and scheduling overruns.

At the BOBI microsite we regularly post new “experiments” where the researchers poke and prod these ERP clients in hopes of unveiling the secret to how ERPs enslave them and unlock their budgets.

The ultimate goal for RedPrairie is to have the visitor download a series of white papers.  And since going live with this site in early November they are seeing a 5-fold increase in visits and downloads.  Not bad.

The brilliant targeting tactic here is that the content is something that appeals to the new IT wonk and the mature CEO alike.  No need to fight through the gate-keeper to get to the power brokers – theircolleagues actually do that job for us by passing it around with a “You’ve got to see this” note attached.

Of course, unless it’s well-executed, it could back fire.  But at the BOBI, so far, so good.