On, off, below, above…”line” marketing is dead

March 6th, 2007

The old marketing (read advertising) paradigm thinks along lines:

Above the line – broadcast advertising, tv, print etc

Below the line – direct mail, one-to-one marketing, CRM

Online – any internet driven marketing activity or structure

Off-line – any marketing activity that is not using the internet

Its a redundant idea.

Customers see no lines. They don’t care. They are not aware. They simply want to have a good offer of a relevant product or service. They want to deal with you in whatever way they choose.

There is no “online” brand strategy and “off-line” brand strategy. There is only a brand strategy. Well, you hope there is.

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4 Responses to “On, off, below, above…”line” marketing is dead”

  1. Peter Says:
    May 30th, 2007 at 11:38 am

    David,

    Having recently jumped ship from client to agency side… I’m a bigger proponent of the benefits of integrated brand content then ever before. I firmly agree that “there is no line” and was wondering if you could provide some historical significance to the ATB and BTL terminology… I suspect it is routed in accounting practice

  2. David Koopmans Says:
    May 30th, 2007 at 3:43 pm

    Peter, that’s a good question: I don’t have an answer to that, but whoever finds out first should post it here! Thanks for dropping by.

  3. Justin Ellis Says:
    June 13th, 2007 at 7:19 pm

    I’m a lawyer, but was looking into the terms. According to Wikipedia:
    The term [above the line] comes from accountancy and is to do with the way in which Procter and Gamble, one of the world’s biggest clients, were charged for their media in the 1950s and 1960s. Advertising agencies made so much commission from booking media for clients that the creative generation and actual production costs of making TV ads was free - hence above the line. Everything else they paid for and was therefore below the line

  4. David Koopmans Says:
    June 13th, 2007 at 8:16 pm

    Hi Justin, thanks for solving this riddle. Who would have thought to look it up on Wikipedia? :)
    I have a question for you. I checked out your website and obviously you are a pretty web savvy firm. I have law clients who simply can’t see the value of a website for their business. What would you tell them? What value delivers your website to your business?
    Cheers and thanks for stopping by.
    David

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