DRTV FAQs

DRTV stands for Direct Response Television. DRTV is a type of TV advertising which calls for the viewer to respond directly to the advert – by picking up the phone, going online or going into a store. One of the best things about DRTV is that the response is almost instant in most cases, so you can get a read very quickly.

Not all DRTV is teleshopping. Teleshopping or TV Shopping is a subset of DRTV which must have certain characteristics:

 a) it must offer a product or service for sale

 b) it must include a fixed price on screen

 c) it must include an ordering mechanism

If the advert fulfils these characteristics this opens up specific Teleshopping airtime, which is traded differently to linear TV advertising, often at excellent rates.

The usual lead-time you create a DRTV advert from scripting stage to being on air is 3-4 months. Much faster turnarounds are possible if required.

The cost very much depends on whether there is existing footage available or if we are starting from scratch, what the product or service is and of course the length of creative. We are a lean company, and we think you will find our budgets fair and reasonable. Please get in touch with us and we’ll be very happy to give you an estimated budget depending on your requirements.

We would normally recommend testing your creative over a one-month period as response tends to improve with repetition/opportunity to see (OTS). That said, you can normally gauge if a campaign is going to be profitable within seven days.

This very much depends on what other media is in the mix at the same time. If there is not significant spend elsewhere we would usually recommend testing with a media budget of circa £30,000 over the course of a month.

In the UK there are two overriding DRTV creative formats, Longform and Shortform:

LONGFORM – Longform DRTV typically takes the form of a 12- or 30-minute advert, also known as an infomercial. From a regulatory perspective, longform refers to any creative that exceeds five minutes in length.

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This format is particularly effective for products or services that require detailed explanation and demonstration. It is usually presenter-led and often includes customer testimonials, providing a consumer perspective on the product or service. Longform creative also features multiple Call-to-Action (CTA) segments throughout.

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Smart Response has also developed an ‘As Live’ creative format, allowing clients to feature up to six products within a single 30-minute infomercial. Please contact us to find out more.

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Longform media can offer a cost-effective advertising solution, as relatively few companies invest in this type of creative. Those that do can often benefit from using the same creative over an extended period, building long-term, profitable campaigns that can run successfully for years.

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Every mainstream TV channel in the UK is entitled to carry up to three hours of longform teleshopping airtime per day. Airtime is also available on dedicated TV shopping channels, which are primarily carried on the Sky platform.

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SHORTFORM – Shortform DRTV is usually one 3 minute or 4 minute advert, but this term can also be applied to shorter adverts for 30 seconds, 60 seconds, 90 seconds or 2 minutes.

Shortform creative allows brands to showcase a full set of features and benefits for their product. We often advise on including consumer testimonials in a 3 minute DRTV creative as the ‘real user views’ certainly help with response rates.

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Shortform creative can be designed to be modular, and therefore cost effectively updated as required with new products and/or seasonal offers/messaging.

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Smart Response are also very experienced in producing 30 second creative for our clients to run on linear airtime, which can be very efficient to drive retail sales, particularly when it is run in tandem with 3-minute advertising to drive additional reach.

Combining 3 minute shortform with 30 second ‘cut-down’ creative can be a hugely compelling format to drive consumers to respond online, on the phone or in store whilst enabling greater brand building through the impacts a 30 second creative can deliver.

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Shortform teleshopping creative runs on mainstream TV channels to achieve campaign reach at a fraction of the cost of linear airtime. It also runs in the daytime, when TV is being watched rather than recorded – so adverts are generally not skipped.