Is Classic Direct Response The Best Advertising For iPad?

Something to ponder…

…is classic direct response copywriting the most effective way to approach advertising through channels like the iPad?

Arguably, of course, it’s the best approach to ANY advertising.

I raise the question because of a conversation over lunch the other day with a good friend and client.

This particular friend is a gadget-fiend of the first order.  A big Apple fan, there’s probably no modern electronic gadget he hasn’t got or at least tried out.

Naturally, he has an iPad…

…and he has subscriptions to quite a few publications.

As an aside here, I doubt if I have to tell you that the traditional print media is struggling badly  these days because of the disruptive change caused by the internet.

I’ve touched on this before…

“Could Direct Response Marketing Save The Newspaper Business?”

…and yesterday’s post has some relevant points about dealing with changing conditions…

“The Artist, The Copywriter And Adapting To The Market”.

The advent of the Kindle and the iPad (and similar devices) caused a great deal of excitement in the media industry.  There was the hope that people would be prepared to pay for access to read on their mobile devices.

In effect, the old physical print medium would be replaced by the shiny new electronic medium.

It may work, although from what I can see, people aren’t prepared to pay too much for electronic access.

There’s one other big problem…

…old-style media never made their money from charging for their content.

Sure, it made a useful contribution, but the profits all came from…

…ADVERTISING!

And it’s the loss of advertising revenue that’s causing the legacy media such big financial problems.

Back to the conversation with my friend.

He was telling me how the various publications he subscribes to carry advertising…

…but you come across them as you’re “swiping” through the content to get to the next article.

Obviously it’s super-easy to skip over the ad (in the old physical print medium, of course, you couldn’t do that…it sat there on the page).

So, if ads are going to attract a response…

…how do you get people to stop mid-swipe?

How about…

…an arresting headline and copy that looks a little like an article?

Perhaps something that looks very much like a classic direct response ad with very dense copy (plus some suitable attention-grabbing images)?

It might sound crazy and I’m sure all the hip creative types pushing their clients to use this channel wouldn’t even have this idea on the radar…

…but well worth testing, I suggest.

Especially when, as I suspect, the mainstream approach produces dismal results.

(Of course, they may not even bother to measure the effectiveness of the advertising…

…which is another story.)