• by Paul Gough , December 5, 2002

While mainstream advertisers are experimenting with long-form spots, the infomercial is going the other way, using 60- and 90-second direct-response spots.

It’s happening across the spectrum, with companies like ID Media in New York and Worldlink in Los Angeles using the shorter-form spots to give companies like Verizon, American Express and Johnson & Johnson a taste of direct-response TV.

“It’s been evolving, going from longer to shorter spots,” says Gaye Sussman, president of ID Media, an Interpublic subsidiary that launched in January and has about $450 million in billings.

“That’s the area that has grown the most in the past two years,” says Toni Knight, president of WorldLink.

A few years ago, the 120-second spot was more common for advertisers who wanted to send a direct response message but either weren’t interested in the 28-minute version or had the two-minute spot run in conjunction with the traditional longer-form infomercials. Now, Sussman says, direct-response spots are growing shorter. And, just as important, local stations and cable channels are now loosening up inventory restrictions and are more receptive to the shorter spots running although some stations are still less-than-enthusiastic about having direct-response ads taking up 120 seconds of their commercial pods.

For a planner or buyer, it’s economics. You can get the same ratings points for half the money of a 120-second spot.

“The challenge is really reconciling the needs of the advertisers to have the time to tell the story and the time availability/inventory availability,” says Lynn Fantom, CEO of ID Media. Their clients that use 60-second spots are in the Fortune 1000, with many of the top 20 largest U.S. advertisers in their categories.

“Direct response is being widely used by Fortune 1000 advertisers,” Fantom says.

For them, Sussman says, a 60-second spot can be more successful than a 28-minute spot. Longer-form infomercials generally work best with high-margin products like exercise or beauty products that need to spend a lot of time selling.

It’s also the reality that people don’t generally sit for the 28 and a half minutes of an infomercial, they say, which is why most infomercials repeat their messages every few minutes.

Direct response also has other appeals for advertisers. Direct-response advertisers generally pay lower rates than traditional spots, although that comes with a price: The spots are bought on a pre-emptible basis and the channels aren’t obligated to run them.

WorldLink’s Knight says that direct-response gives traditional advertisers the chance to use their general-market budgets in ways that can be tracked and gives almost instant results. The companies can not only sell products but that can generate leads and provide information that may not be available otherwise, she says.

“With direct-response, it’s a way to evaluate media, typically to create new customers, sell products or generate leads,” she says.