Why BTL is a better return on Marketing Investment than ATL

Marketing being a diversified sector, keeps on evolving. As the time changes, marketers look for new trends and build new strategies. Ever since, experiential marketing came into existence, BTL (Below The Line) activities have started to grow exponentially and create more influence than the traditional marketing or ATL (Above The Line) activities.

Before we proceed, lets understand what is ATL and BTL?

ATL focusses on communicating to the mass market. All promotional messages are untargeted and does not focus to any particular segment. The main purpose of this line is creating visibility and inform customers about its availability. These strategies help companies reach a larger audience and prompt customers to visit the stores. Examples: Newspaper, Radio, Television.

BTL activities are more focused towards a specific group of customers. They are highly targeted towards demographic and psychographic characteristics of a particular segment. The main objective of these strategies is to gain conversation and generate business. Examples: Billboard, Emails, SMSs, Instore Branding, Display Units and Press Conference.

Now, let us understand why should one invest in BTL activities?

• Create Brand Awareness: Though ATL activities inform potential leads about the availability about the product but BTL activities tends to convert the leads into customers by focusing on creating more awareness and giving more information to the targeted segment.
• Makes your Brand Stand Out: Innovative and creative marketing ideas help brands to stand out from the rest. It gives brands to communicate their marketing message in an effective way.
• Creates Brand credibility: Delivers instant results and builds a positive brand image. Calculating ROI is comparatively easier in case of BTL than that of ATL. It helps in creating a customer-brand relationship.
• Enables customers to feel the product: Samples and trial generation is one of the best measures in creating more buzz. Once the customer is familiar with product, he becomes a brand loyal.

Now the question, Is BTL successful in all the cases?

Even though, BTL is more preferrable by marketers but still marketers like to spend approx. same marketing budget or slightly higher in ATL compared to BTL in some cases where as per the Indian Laws they are not allowed to showcase a particular product. In case of Pharma sector, especially baby care products (below 2 years) they are not allowed to do BTL activity. Similarly, Tobacco industry is not allowed to advertise by ATL. On an average, ATL activity and BTL activity expenditure is 50:50. 

As the line between traditional ATL and BTL has started blurring, marketers have started looking for more innovative solutions to interact with consumers and create more buzz. Now, marketers have started to consider the benefit for the retailers as well. They are considering innovative POS Display started to look for innovative POS (Point of Sales) Display solutions to keep their products and attract customers by adding benefits to retailers. Marketers are focusing on experiential marketing and only the time will tell what more innovation is yet to come.

Author: Aritri Das
Aritri (at) amitoje (dot) com
Aritri is an experienced brand consultant at Amitoje India, with experience of helping amazing brands like Cipla, Tata foods, Kellogs etc maximise ROI through POSM/POS display stands and POP branding. To reach out to her for your brand click -> www.amitoje.com/whatsapp and ask for Aritri.