Once upon a time there was a line. Above the line was a trade called advertising; below the line was a discipline called direct marketing. And then along came the Internet, and everything got mixed up.

Once upon a time there was a line. Above the line was a trade called advertising; below the line was a discipline called direct marketing. And then along came the Internet, and everything got mixed up.

Sound like a good enough bedtime story to you? Not unless you mind waking up in the middle of the night in a pool of sweat and disarray. I fear that this story is more reminiscent of a nightmare than a dream and I’ll tell you why.

How many panel discussions have you attended – or even participated in – where both branding and direct response are spoken about almost in the same breath? Reach and acquisition, exposure and conversion, impact and optimization all being represented as if they were Granny Smith and Golden Delicious, when in actual fact they are more like Kiwi and Prune (think about it).

The sad truth is that even within the industry, we struggle to make the distinction between branding and direct response; we’ve debated the “is the Web a branding or direct response medium?” to death; most feel we’ve overdone the subject – I feel we haven’t even begun to understand and explain this fundamental conundrum. While the “it’s both” or “branded response” arguments both hold water, I still feel that most of us (and by most I’m talking about 80%+) are fairly confused when it comes to making the separation between short-term and longer-term business-building.

Every time I hear the phrases “did it work” or “was it successful” on a panel, I cringe at the misuse and vague generalizations being employed to ascertain whether a campaign was successful or not. For the most part, campaigns are still being mostly judged on isolated, short-term metrics – of which, clickthrough is still rearing its ugly head as the sole determinant of success. I always want to shout out, “What’s your definition of work or success?”

Why does every campaign have to answer this question? Why aren’t campaigns being correctly contextualized as a step or part of a process? Why aren’t online programs being evaluated on or in an integrated mix?

Agencies and clients need to be able to draw a firm line into the sands of communication in order to push back where appropriate, manage expectations and educate accordingly in terms of what’s possible, doable or achievable (especially at lower budget levels.) It’s gross neglect not to.

If nothing else is available, why should flawed metrics be leaned on as default measurements? In my entire time at my previous agency, not one campaign was ever wholly judged based on clickthrough. Granted, it was a tough process to help evolve our clients to ensuring that post-click and view analytics were staple additions to every media plan, not to mention the potential inclusion of a typical pre/post research study to accompany the campaign.

Advanced analytics or smart metrics are our salvation in the mission to help redefine what lives above the line and what resides below it. Incidentally, “smart metrics” is a transferred epithet (please see me after the bell if you need further explanation).

Let me back up one step to explain why I decided to write this article in the first place. A couple of weeks ago, Leo Burnett announced their plans to roll-up their Interactive, Direct and Database operations into a 400-person strong network, called iLeo. While their vision is to “grow, not shrink” with their new “branded direct-response” offering, I wonder how much branding will actually get done vs. the more direct approach?

They’re not alone. TBWA\Chiat\Day did something similar with their interactive creative and production talent, by rolling them up into Tequila, while on the media side, OMD Digital is run by a direct response guy. Martin Sorrell speaks of Interactive and Direct in the same breath. Maurice Levy dismisses online as a branding medium. I could go on and on…

Make no mistake. There are advantages of doing so. And if this is part of a short- to medium-term solution that guarantees certain economic efficiencies, not to mention survival, then I am all for it. However, my concern is that I just don’t see how the branding side of the equation will maintain its independence in this scenario. Instead of “fighting” with the traditional team for interactive’s day in court, the battle will shift to the direct playing field – and interactive will be yet another step removed from the core traditional team. Instead of being the final five minutes of the traditional media conversation, the five minutes will now wrap up the direct conversation (if there’s time of course).

Perhaps I’m oversimplifying this to a fault. However, I do want to reduce this to its simplest component: a line. A line that divides and distinguishes that which is above from that which is below.

Perhaps there’ll be a place for interactive on both sides of this line – just like the way it always was until the day Internet Advertising and Internet Direct Marketing got tangled up with each other. And things were never quite the same again, were they?