DIRECT RESPONSE VERSUS AWARENESS ADVERTISING
henever I’m asked
to sum up the differences between traditional and direct response advertising,
I oversimplify it this way:Traditional advertising seeks to create positive awareness of a product in enough minds that, eventually, your target market will reach for your brand. Campaigns of this kind have had their share of overnight successes — Volkswagen’s “think small,” Avis’s “we try harder,” Bensen & Hedges’s “oh the disadvantages” — but, more often, it takes years for an awareness campaign to take hold. Viewers weren’t too sure about Wendy’s Dave Thomas at first, but embraced him over time.
So, traditional advertising is the kind of advertising you may have to run for a few years before you know whether or not you want to fire your ad agency.
Direct response advertising agencies have improved on that. We know how to get fired in about 60 days.
The distinguishing characteristic of direct response advertising is the fact that it asks the target market to respond directly back to the advertiser. Usually this means asking the market to call, visit a web site, mail a card, or walk into a place of business.
Direct response advertising is, therefore, perfectly measurable. We’re
Which is both good and bad. It’s good for our clients, since they know what they’re getting in return for their advertising dollar. But it’s only good for us here at the agency when our work performs. When it doesn’t, there’s no place to hide.
There is room — in fact, need — in the world for both kinds of advertising. McDonald’s would be foolish to abandon image-building ads. So would Coke. On the other hand, Geico Insurance would be equally foolish to give up their charming “call now for a free quote” spots for ones that merely increase awareness of geckoes.
Most agencies who are good at one usually aren’t at the other (though both indignantly protest this point). The strategic thinking and skill set behind an awareness campaign are entirely different from those behind a response campaign. Awareness advertising needs to break through clutter, command attention, and implant itself in as many memories as possible. Direct response advertising
must also break through clutter, but its
goal is not so much to be remembered as to be acted upon without delay.
Thus, differing tactics emerge. Awareness
TV spots air when the greatest number of targeted viewers are likely to
be watching, whereas DR spots air when viewers are fewer in number, but
are more likely to leave the tube to make a phone call. Awareness print
ads tend to keep it short and punchy, whereas DR ads tend to be longer,
to give readers enough information to make a buying decision. Awareness
approaches can afford to tease and entertain, whereas DR approaches must
get quickly to the point.
The disparate approaches taken by the
two kinds of agencies can sometimes lead to bickering over who is and
isn’t “truly creative.” It’s not unusual for awareness agencies to dismiss
DR agencies as champions of the straightforward and boring, or for DR
agencies to accuse awareness agencies of sacrificing effectiveness on
the altar of artistic fulfillment. Direct marketers will blurt out, “If
it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.” To which awareness advertisers hurl
back, “If it isn’t creative, it won’t sell.”
In their zeal to decry one another
as the antichrists of advertising, both camps