To celebrate what has been an exciting year of growth, DRMetrix is expanding its network footprint by 13%.  The following 12 networks are being added in time for the start of the 2017 media year.

This will increase DRMetrix’s monitored universe of national cable networks to 104 networks.

Coming into the New Year, we look forward to publishing our first ever state-of-the-industry report as well as recognizing all of the top direct response advertisers and brands for 2016!

On behalf of all of us at DRMetrix, we would like to wish you and yours a blessed holiday season and a healthy and prosperous New Year!

With the growth of TV Everywhere, and new ad supported video mediums, it’s an exciting time with huge opportunities for industry growth.

It’s time to open a dialog with media providers,  retail industry leaders, and the DRTV industry about the benefits of collaboration and transparency to the betterment of all parties.

The term “transparency” can mean a lot of things.  As proponents of transparency, we find ourselves educating the DRTV, Media, and Retail industries about the benefits of third party commercial monitoring and airings verification.   At DRMetrix, we are passionate about this subject and this is where we have spent our time and investment in recent years.  We have a vision which is growth oriented and aligns with the best interests of our industry.   We believe the DRTV industry’s brightest days are ahead and we are investing in that future today.

FOSTERING GROWTH WITH EXISTING AND NEW DRTV MEDIUMS

One of the byproducts of commercial monitoring is competitive media research.   In business, you often attract new clients based on the success of existing clients.  Like no other, DRTV uniquely measures and focuses on media that performs and this is why competitive media research is a significant driver of qualified DRTV business to participating media companies.

In addition to unrated cable networks, our industry is embracing networks on the digital broadcast tier, video over the top, mobile video, etc.  Greater transparency in some of these mediums would help accelerate adoption.  Many of these new mediums are literally “off the radar” of our industry but may nevertheless be fertile ground.   Ultimately, media companies will have to make a decision of whether or not to collaborate with third party monitoring companies who can provide the industry with the type of independent business intelligence that drives growth for all stakeholders.

THE RETAIL INDUSTRY

The product/retail side of the DRTV industry may have taken a back seat in recent years but it’s a cyclical cycle tied to changes in media, industry innovation and disruption.  When cable television was first introduced, DRTV product advertisers were the early adopters long before the larger cable networks became rated.   The retail industry desires measurement and accountability and ultimately the marketers want credit for media dollars spent regardless of whether they are buying inventory in rated/unrated media, buying online or offline video ad placements.

The industry would benefit if research companies were willing to step up and help quantify the value of all this media.  Bringing things into a unified view that would make it easy for DRTV product marketers to convey the level of their ad expenditures to the retail industry.  Airings verification is the key to providing credible retail rankings for all parties concerned and have become a very influential metric for U.S. Retailers. Media that embraces transparency and collaborates with monitoring company’s, such as DRMetrix, will find themselves able to contribute to a marketer’s “spend metrics/rankings”.  In such a competitive landscape, marketers have a real incentive to shift ad dollars to monitored media so this is another tangible benefit to media companies who embrace transparency.

AIRINGS VERIFICATION AND WORKFLOW AUTOMATION

DRTV agencies appreciate the work flow automation benefits provided by airings verification.  However, on the national cable network tier, these benefits have been limited to a universe of 120 rated networks by traditional monitoring companies.  Can we count on these same companies to monitor online/offline networks that are unrated and purchased more exclusively by DRTV advertisers?  What about transparency in media billing? Mistakes are made in both post logs and affidavits which result in advertisers sometimes paying for ads that didn’t run.  DRMetrix is developing the technology to solve this problem.  We are able to import agency post logs and immediately identify airings that did not really clear.  If such airings appear on media affidavits, we can provide streaming video of the network ad breaks as proof that the ads in question did not run.  This is yet another example of the benefits of transparency and why we believe the DRTV industry will ultimately favor doing business with monitored networks.

THE VISION

The argument against transparency loses in the face of the numerous benefits to the larger industry.  It exists in mature industries and time and time again it has proven itself a catalyst to growth.  Third party monitoring companies can help media companies to gain greater visibility to both the DRTV and Retail industries.  Workflow automation, auditing of airing/billing, and competitive media research all help to drive market adoption and are tangible benefits.   What a wonderful vision for the future of our industry if media companies will agree to participate and embrace transparency.

The new release of AdSphere, which DRMetrix debuted last month at the ERA Show, has now been officially released.  Click here to see some of the new exciting features and be sure and sign up for a complimentary trial!   You are now free to explore the DNA of Direct Response!

Welcome to the new AdSphere blog!

If you are an AdSphere user, please be sure to subscribe in order to stay up to date with all of the new and upcoming feature enhancements.

AdSphere started as a concept, a dream if you will.  Bringing this dream to reality required a significant amount of research and development. After nearly four years, DRMetrix deployed its monitoring platform in December of 2014 and began monitoring 90+ national cable networks.  18 months later, the AdSphere database had grown large enough to introduce the first beta release of AdSphere.   Now, at the end of the September 2016 broadcast month, the database has grown to 12.9 million spot airings, 150K infomercial airings, 14,900 unique DRTV creatives, 4,500 DRTV brands, and 2,600 advertisers.

By the time you read this post, a new beta build of AdSphere will have been released.  As an industry first, near real time airing data is now available for all DRTV brands and creatives to within 30 minutes of airing!  No more waiting 6-8 weeks for actionable data.

In addition, the new build provides the following enhancements:

• Same day & historical airings available for any DRTV brand or creative
• Summary and airing detail exports
• Video playback of any airing for 10 days & new airing level thumbnail feature
• New filters including English/Spanish, lifetime rankings, and more.
• All network trend view & new media analysis tools
• Advertiser and brand summary reports with creative video links
• Updates to user interface

Given the DRTV industry’s frequent use of different phone numbers, promotion codes, and other techniques to make TV media more accountable, AdSphere was engineered to track this data at the airing level.  For example, a video thumbnail is taken at a specific point in each commercial airing such as the “call to action” screen.  This allows AdSphere™ users to click on any current or historical airing and view a video thumbnail picture to confirm what phone number, promotion code, etc., was seen at the original time of airing.  Additionally, for up to 10 days, AdSphere™ users will be able to click and watch a video  of the actual airing for any traditional DRTV creative (including 28.5 minute infomercials).

For more information, please be sure and download our feature update digital brochure.  An updated user guide will also be available soon.

AdSphere™, from DRMetrix, is a next generation competitive media research system developed for the DRTV industry.  It debuted recently, in mid-June of this year, offering business intelligence including:

• Compare spend levels of different DRTV brands and advertisers
• Discover best performing brands for any advertiser
• Determine best performing creatives for any brand
• Gauge the performance of over 14,000 creatives
• Study DRTV execution across 122 industry categories
• Identify top performing networks and ROS dayparts for any brand/creative
• Identify new advertisers, brands, and creatives

DRMetrix is debuting a new update for AdSphere™ at the ERA/D2C Show which will add the following features:

• Same day & historical airings available for any DRTV brand or creative
• Summary and airing detail exports
• Video playback of any airing for 10 days & new airing level thumbnail feature
• New filters including English/Spanish, lifetime rankings, and more.
• All network trend view & new media analysis tools
• Advertiser and brand summary reports with creative video links
• Updates to user interface

The new features are planned for release at the end of September.  Most notable is the ability to export same day airings, as well as historical airings, for any DRTV creative.  Given the DRTV industry’s frequent use of different phone numbers, promotion codes, and other techniques to make TV media more accountable, AdSphere was engineered to track this data at the airing level.  For example, a video thumbnail is taken at a specific point in each commercial airing such as the “call to action” screen.  This allows AdSphere™ users to click on any current or historical airing and view a video thumbnail picture to confirm what phone number, promotion code, etc., was seen at the original time of airing.  Additionally, for up to 10 days, AdSphere™ users will be able to click and watch a video  of the actual airing for any traditional DRTV creative (including 28.5 minute infomercials).

DRMetrix will be exhibiting this week at booth 716 just inside the Lafite Ballroom near the entrance/exit.

It’s that time of year!  Voting is open starting today through Friday, August 26th for the 2016 DRMA marketer of the year.  For your consideration, here are some thoughts and insights gleamed from DRMetrix’s new AdSphere­™ Research System for the five DRMA nominees.

Differences in DRTV media execution

Three of this year’s nominees, Adore Me, Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority, and Vista Print are executing their DRTV media buys on a non-traditional Brand/DR basis while AIG and Nutrisystem are executing their media on a traditional DR basis.  While both traditional and non-traditional DRTV approaches incorporate a call to action, there is significant difference in how consumer response is measured and how media buys are optimized.  In order to understand traditional DR metrics such as network cost per call, cost per sale, ROI, etc., one needs to track consumer response back to each network.  On the other hand, use of a vanity call to action, which is typical in the case of Brand/DR campaigns, suggests the advertiser is managing their buy based on “cost per impression” data from Nielsen.

Differences in Spend Levels

There are also significant differences in what each Nominee has spent on National Cable inventory. AdSphere™ tracks of all of the airings for every DRTV brand running across 92 national cable networks.  This has resulted in over 11.6 million DRTV spots detected since DRMetrix deployed it’s monitoring platform in December of 2014.  Each airing in analyzed taking into consideration the average price of DR media by network and ROS daypart.  Additionally, airings running in national ad breaks are segmented from those running in less expensive local “cue tone” ad breaks.  AdSphere™ utilizes a comparative spend index  where the brand with the highest level of spend is given a score of “100” and all other brands are scored in comparison.

Although they are not a nominee this year, the top DRTV short form brand for year to date 2016 is Liberty Mutual earning a short form spend index score of “100”.

Our first nominee, by order of projected media spend, is Nutrisystem with a short form spend index of “46.93”.  (DRMetrix estimates that Nutrisystem spent 46.93% of what Liberty Mutual spent for the broadcast period 12/28/15 – 8/14/16.)  It’s also worth noting that Nutrisystem is the only nominee that also advertises via 28.5 minute long form infomercials earning a long form spend index ranking of “10.47” compared to the top infomercial brand year to date which is Cize from Beachbody.

AdSphere™ Expenditure Data

Here’s how the short form spend index breaks down for each of our five nominees.

1. Nutrisystem – 46.93
2. Vista Print – 28.33
3. Adore Me – 6.05
4. Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority – 1.08
5. AIG – 1.07

Those of you with access to AdSphere™, please login and run a 2016 YTD this week to see more details such as number of airings detected for each of these brands, their actual media schedules, and you can watch all of their creatives as well!

You are now free to explore the DNA of Direct Response

If you don’t have access to AdSphere™ please feel free to take advantage of DRMetrix’s free week trial for first time users.  You can also checkout the AdSphere™ Biannual 2016 industry report “2016 Mid-Year” which debuted on www.drmetrix.com last month featuring rankings for the top traditional DRTV product campaigns and advertisers.  The new Biannual report was created in partnership with SciMark’s “True Top 50” industry report which was released on July 24, 2016.

DRMetrix and SciMark have come together to collaborate on a new Biannual DRTV Industry Report.  Data from DRMetrix’s new AdSphere™ system will be used to determine the top DRTV brands and advertisers based on detected spot and infomercial airings across 92 national cable networks.

Jordan Pine will be presenting his analysis of the AdSphere™ data on The SciMark Report as well as announcing the True Top 50, True Top Marketer, and True Top Producer, along with other awards for the period in question.

Click here to read The SciMark Report’s 2016 (mid-year) analysis now!

We’re excited to be working on something new this summer with Jordan Pine of SciMark.  The finished product will be available tomorrow (Monday) but Jordan has already announced what is coming on The SciMark Report.  Click here for the details!