ABOVE THE LINE VERSUS BELOW THE LINE ADVERTISING
Above The Line (ATL) and Below The Line (BTL) advertising are two
terms that are bandied around often these days in the advertising world
and often have the lay person confused as to what they stand for. It
might be worth our while to begin this by defining what constitutes the
metaphoric ‘Line’. To quote Michael John Baker from The Marketing Book ,
the terms ‘Above The Line’ and ‘Below The Line’ came into existence way
back in 1954 with the company Proctor and Gamble paying their
advertising agencies a different rate and separately from the agencies
who took on the other promotional activities.
What are ATL and
BTL activities? They seem simple enough. Above The Line (ATL)
advertising is where mass media is used to promote brands and reach out
to the target consumers. These include conventional media as we know it,
television and radio advertising, print as well as internet. This is
communication that is targeted to a wider spread of audience, and is not
specific to individual consumers. ATL advertising tries to reach out to
the mass as consumer audience.
Below the line (BTL)
advertising is more one to one, and involves the distribution of
pamphlets, handbills, stickers, promotions, brochures placed at point of
sale, on the roads through banners and placards. It could also involve
product demos and samplings at busy places like malls and market places
or residential complexes. For certain markets, like rural markets where
the reach of mass media like print or television is limited, BTL
marketing with direct consumer outreach programmes do make the most
sense. Says Raghu Khanna, CEO, CASHurDRIVE, “When budget is issue and
the brand wants to have a consumer connect BTL has better ROI.”
Other
BTL activities could include roadshows, or moving hoardings with the ad
of the product, and vehicles with promotional staff interacting with
people demonstrating the product and distributing literature on the
product. BTL advertising is advertising that uses less conventional
methods of advertising that the specific channels of advertising that
may or may not be used by ATL advertising to promote products and
services. According to Iya Malhotra Bhatia, Marketing Professional,
“BTL is a preferred tool when test marketing a product, sampling and
also in case of a targeted campaign in related to another bigger
phenomenon. Also when TG is very niche, BTL makes more sense.”
BTL
promotion might include direct mail promotional campaigns, PR and sales
promotions which are handled directly by the company itself or
outsourced to specifically PR agencies and sales promotion agencies and
may or not be related to the advertising campaign. BTL advertising might
include email campaigns, telemarketing, etc with targeted groups of
potential clients. Says Megha Ghosh, Account Director, Client Services
at Encompass, “BTL is preferred on several occasions but the foremost
would be when you need to have a personal interaction with the
consumer.”
Says Kapil Taneja, Regional Head, North, FUN Cinemas
(Esselgroup company), “Sometimes BTL is preferred over ATL due to budget
issues, the need to physically display the product, to conduct a hand
on product contest as well as for new launches and teasers campaigns.”
Companies prefer adopting BTL as a means of reaching out to their target
consumers when their product is something they need to engage the
consumer in a touch and feel experience with.
Some people would
consider ATL and BTL antiquated terminologies in an era which uses the
internet and lightening speed changes in modes of communication to reach
out to the consumer. “When you are communicating with a niche audience
BTL is better. However, digital media has more or less broken these
boundaries of ATL versus BTL as digital communication can address both
at the same time.,” says Namrata Rana, Director, Futurescape.
Interestingly,
there is a new phrase called Through the Line, or TTL, which integrates
both ATL and BTL activities. BTL communications from brands is rapidly
becoming a dying form of reaching out to the audience with agencies and
clients going adopting the Integrated Communication approach.
To
end with a quote O&M’s Piyush Pandey, from a previous interview, on
the two forms of brand communication, Below-the-line is extremely
important, but then when wasn’t it? It is just that till now it was
taken a bit for granted and not too many innovations were made. I am
glad the industry is planning to revolutionise this game. It is not a
question of mass media versus below-the-line. It is an era of mass media
plus below-the-line.”
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