Electronic Retailer - June 2011 - 42

BRENDAN CONDON WANTS IT ALL

the best frequency and reach. As that particular creative starts to perform less well, it drops down the list. We judge all of it according to the actions of consumers. And we’re agnostic with regard to the response mechanism. It can be an 800 number, a URL, a text code for mobile phones – whatever it is, we can track it. What kinds of bids are required for marketers to get air time? Ten dollars per lead is probably near the low end of what’s feasible for us. When we’re prospecting for marketers, we look closely at what would make sense for them. Do you deal only in short-form commercials? Or long-form infomercials, too? Less than 10 percent of our business is in long form. We do a lot of 30- and 60-second spots. Now we’re seeing interest from marketers in 15- and 20-second

spots. The challenge there is to come up with creative that can engage consumers in that short a time. Even with 60-second commercials, where the marketer spent a lot of money, we’ll often test it and say, ‘Yeah, it looks good and sounds good, but we don’t want it because it doesn’t generate response.’ Your background in online advertising, where pay-per-click is common, certainly familiarized you with the pay-per-response model. But why did you make the jump to television? Performance-based advertising is in my blood, no doubt about it. But there’s about $70 billion worth of national advertising on TV today. That’s more than three times higher than the total for online ads, despite all the talk you hear about advertising migrating to the Internet. And it’s four or five times higher than the total for magazine advertising. So if we take our performance-based business model and really evangelize it

to TV advertisers, I think the sky is the limit. I believe that until now, REVShare has been sort of a well-kept secret. Why do you think the pay-per-response model is so common online and so rare on television? There’s a lot of history behind that, obviously. But one reason is that even if you consider only direct-response TV and not brand advertising, DRTV has not been as sophisticated as online DR in terms of measurable analytics and results-driven metrics. There’s still a notion that only online advertising can do that effectively. The notion is wrong, of course, because provided you have a measurable call to action, you can measure just as well from TV as you can online. A lot of advertising dollars really have migrated online, and a big reason is that advertisers can pay only for results. I see an opportunity to bring some of that money back to TV. A TV ad is the most powerful messaging medium available to marketers. In terms of engagement, the sound and motion in a TV ad makes it far more valuable than any display ad on the web. Plus, with TV you get communal viewing – your ad can reach families, couples, siblings, gatherings. That’s why I’m not walking away from TV. But you do plan to branch out across other platforms, is that right? Yes. We have settled on a strategy that has two parts. Both will involve acquisitions. First, we have a healthy core business in television, and we’re looking to acquire companies that could grow and complement that. What kinds of companies? Ones that would integrate well with us because they have a complementary culture as well as a complementary value proposition. That value might involve relationships with advertisers or networks, or it might involve expertise in a vertical ad sector, such as fashion or beauty or financial services. For instance, I’m talking about agencies, rep firms or

523324_IMS.indd 1

electronicRETAILER | June 2011

3/21/11 3:21:20 PM

Electronic Retailer - June 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Electronic Retailer - June 2011