Above The Line And Below The Line

Above the line (ATL) and below the line (BTL) marketing services represent two different sides of a marketer's brand awareness and customer targeting strategy. ATL is synonymous to mass marketing, big splash advertising, whereas BTL is data driven, highly measurable and focused on customer acquisition and retention programs. At V12 Group, we own everything "below the green line," or below the line, and work with our clients to provide the right types of BTL services that complement their ATL campaigns.




What are programs that fall within ATL?

ATL services are big ticket items. Think Super Bowl ad, print ad in the Wall Street Journal, the Monster.com blimp, and the Calvin Klein billboard. These executions typically are tied to brand splash and mass marketing. Above the green line campaigns are important for brand lift and generating millions of impressions and audience reach. However, mass marketing dollars are shifting towards micro marketing areas due to a marketer's need to increase customer targeting based on segmentation and preferences, and to show quantifiable results based on metrics and return on investment. ATL marketing services tend to be very difficult to measure versus BTL programs.


Examples of ATL categories include:

Television
Radio
Magazine
Outdoor
Newspaper
What are programs that fall within BTL?

V12 Group provides a single point of contact for a marketer's entire BTL needs. We own the services below the green line, which are based on customer targeting programs. Although forms of big brand splash campaigns are important in terms of mass reach, consumers today are savvier in terms of advertising messages and tend to respond more to offerings that are based on their own interests. Through analytics and database marketing, BTL programs are designed to pinpoint a marketer's customer profile, and then use that data to drive highly targeted and measurable campaigns. BTL marketing services' primary value is that dollars spent are measurable. With V12, a marketer can receive one reporting system of all BTL investments and a breakdown of campaign results.


Examples of BTL categories include:

Email
Direct mail
Interactive services
Instatement
Affinity marketing
Event sponsorship