TV’s Role in Measuring DTC Success

Brands are becoming more creative in how they showcase their product, especially with the influx of technology and media methods a brand can use. Jonathan Bottomley, cmo of Boll & Branch, and Alvaro De La Rocha, cmo of Bespoke Post, joined Adweek during our Convergent TV Summit to discuss how their companies are navigating the evolving TV and streaming landscape to reach target audiences, find efficiencies and attempt the impossible: measure attribution. Breaking into the streaming space Bespoke Post is a subscription and e-commerce website focused on product discovery from small businesses. For the past ten years, Bespoke Post has been a direct response-focused advertiser in the digital space. De La Rocha said in the last year or so, they saw a need to start moving into TV. DTC bedding company Boll & Branch has a similar story, originally focusing on audio and direct mail marketing. But Bottomley said the pandemic changed that. “In 2020, we saw a lot of money coming out of the TV market through COVID,” he said. “We saw that as an opportunity to go in, and we rapidly shifted spending and put a lot more money into streaming TV in particular. It really worked for us.” Creating content for streaming According to De La Rocha, the adjustment to creating content for streaming was not an easy feat. “It’s very different from creating content for other mediums,” he said. “It’s very quantity-driven. On mediums like Facebook and TikTok, you don’t know what’s going to work, so you rely on the algorithm and different creators for different niches. But you can’t create 80 TV spots! You don’t have the production budgets nor media budgets to support that kind of testing. So, you have to hone in your message and define who you are. We made two spots, that’s it. You have to commit to, and being in a world where we’re used to cranking out creative, it was very nervy to choose only two.” The role of the marketing plan According to Bottomley, for DTC brands, the marketing plan is the business plan, and it’s critical to invest in a way that both unlocks short-term conversion and longer-term brand stature. “The most capital that you deploy as a DTC business is the marketing investment in media, and it’s very high ratio compared to more traditional businesses. What we’re constantly challenged with is building a plan that one, builds this sort of scale and awareness and reach you need to grow. But, to do that in a way that’s very connected to your ability to convert and acquire and re-acquire.” Choosing where to show up With product offerings and audiences as diverse as those of Bespoke Post, De La Rocha said choosing what kind of content, what platform to show up on, and what audience to target through streaming has taken a lot of heavy lifting. “We’re trying a lot of different networks and trying to gain learnings from what networks are working to then further refine versus going audience-in because we know our audience is diverse,” he said. So, Cheddar News is working for us, but so is the Big Ten Network — those have a little bit of overlap, but they’re also distinct audiences. So, I think testing and spending money is the best way to learn.”

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TV’s Role in Measuring DTC Success

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Alexandra Bower

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Alexandra Bower