Summary
This paper provides an overview of the infomercials and direct response TV industry, primarily in the United States. The paper gives a snapshot summary of the emerging industry in the US, with additional sections on its development, organisation and structure, current conditions and leading companies. It concludes with a brief section about the industry in other countries ('America and the world') as well as a list of further information sources and reading.

Summary
Contrary to a key assumption of the TV industry, interaction with digital interactive TV (iTV) programmes and ads is driven as much by social motivations as it is by information seeking. This insight was revealed by a survey of a representative sample of 867 digital TV households in the UK, which has one of the largest and most experienced digital iTV audiences in the world. This new survey used a comprehensive but efficient set of motivation items, so that no important motivations were left out, which may explain why social motivations emerged as important in this study, whereas they have not been in studies of traditional TV watching. Suggestions are made for how marketers and programme producers can make iTV content that appeals to viewers who are motivated by social needs.

Summary
Gray Sycamore, director at The Marketing Store, argues that the direct marketing industry needs to recognise that consumers are increasingly in control of interactive communications and the flow of data they require to make decisions. This means that print-based marketing, and the communications models that it is based on, are becoming irrelevant for tomorrow's world.

Summary
Guy Phillipson, chief executive of the Internet Advertising Bureau, explains the possibilities of IPTV (internet protocol Television) - being brought to the consumer via high-speed broadband connections. These possibilities are available in two formats: programming supplied over a closed network to a TV set-top box, or content accessed via the web at the PC or home media centre - and provide a radically new way for advertising to work.

Summary
In this introduction to Admap's report on interactivity, Roderick White explains the growing pervasiveness of this new form of direct marketing. Interactive communications, via traditional and internet media, mean that advertisers are having to develop new ways to avoid clutter and generate customer involvement - because marketing success in the future will be on consumers' terms.

Summary
Mike Colling, founder of MC&C, argues that the traditional view that strength of relationship between consumer and medium adds to advertising effectiveness is wrong when applied to direct response. Using a variety of research sources he shows that higher direct marketing response rates are achieved in low commitment media and that impulse-based initial response can lead to strong brand loyalty.

Summary
Loren Grossman, chief marketing officer for RappCollins, discusses the opportunities for direct response TV advertising - such as video on demand (VOD), long-form TV commercials, and retail digital signage (RDS) - and the need for DRTV to remain true to its basic objectives of lead generation and customer acquisition. At all costs, he says, it must avoid being compromised by being merged with general, 'theme' advertising objectives and executions. That way lies the dreaded 'spork', a combination spoon and fork (which performs neither function particularly well).

Summary
Direct response television can be an effective method to expose a product or service to a mass audience. This paper covers all aspects of planning and executing a direct response television campaign, from establishing the advertising objectives to choosing the right type of commercial.

Summary
An article which introduces four features on direct marketing. It reminds readers that direct marketing has been the great advertising phenomenon of the last twenty years. The growth should be seen in the context of fragmentation of other media. It discusses the various of aspect of direct marketing covered in the articles which follow this piece including direct mail, loyalty cards, direct response TV, interactive TV and database marketing.

Summary
This article traces the development of direct response advertising on TV from its earliest days when it was intrusive, brash and unsophisticated to the present time. Now, the author asserts, the medium is used increasingly by blue-chip marketers. It identifies the present role of DRTV spots and examines a number of case studies. The basic structures of DRTV ads are examined It discusses the length of DRTV spots, when to introduce the phone number and the importance of the offer. The author emphasises the significance of salesmanship, emotion within a film, production costs and the challenge of reaching out to people's lives.