LAMMENS: First of all, the fact that TV advertisers are using cable and satellite far more these days, and as a result are growing less dependant on direct response advertisers for revenue. Equally challenging is keeping up with emerging media such as TV and video on demand, Ecast and novel approaches used by the outdoor industry in their bid for the direct response market.

BRAND IMPERIUM: Do you welcome the multitude of options, or is it becoming a hindrance?

LAMMENS: [laughs] New opportunities are always welcome, although it can be daunting to evaluate all the options. The proliferation of media buying options has made accurate tracking more difficult, and has done the same for effective buy management.

BRAND IMPERIUM: How and why has this happened?

LAMMENS: It's become standard these days to include a web address in direct response ads in addition to a unique telephone number. The problem with that is, if you don't have a unique web address for each campaign, and web response is significant, than it might be wrongly attributed to the campaign. This could lead to very poor media optimization decisions.

BRAND IMPERIUM: What would you identify as some of the biggest media opportunities around?

LAMMENS: Broadband video, definitely. It has already reached critical mass, and has tons of inventory. Interactive TV is another one. Everybody is worried about people's ability to record their favourite shows on their sky box, and as a result just fast forwarding through the ads. It's a real concern, as recent figures suggest that 80% skip the commercials on BSkyB. But the real opportunity lies in tagged ads: you are watching your show, and an icon appears, inviting you to click on it. You can then pause the show, visit a microsite where you can learn more the advertisers product. Nobody is really using this technology to enough advantage on interactive TV to its full effect, but that is exactly the principle YouTube operates on: serving adverts during transmission. The trick here is to make the ad highly relevant to the show, and make the interactivity feel as if it adds to the experience of watching the show.

BRAND IMPERIUM: What are your views on mobile marketing?

LAMMENS: Personally, I think SMS codes on your mobile phone are a great response mechanism. Radio should really start looking into this. Radio is pretty much a mobile medium with low attentiveness rates. You make your call to action too complicated in a radio ad, you will get no response, whatsoever. But a 5 number code such as 08880, yeah, I can remember that, send the text and receive the information I requested on my mobile. It can happily sit there until I've got time to look at it.

BRAND IMPERIUM: Are there areas in direct response marketing you feel are unjustly overlooked.

LAMMENS: Valpak is doing a great effort with its co-op mailers. The reason why campaigns with them are so successful is their ability to target so narrowly. Good value for money too. Promotional printers like FSI works miracles as well. Clients very rarely ask for solutions the likes of Valpak or FSI, but I always recommend them because of the effectiveness. You can target your campaigns with laser precision, and there's about 1,400 variables you can lay over your data such as demographics, product usage, behaviour and creditworthiness.

BRAND IMPERIUM: Digital media is all the hype at the moment. Do you find that this is the preferred media option at the moment?

LAMMENS: It is the media option that clients are the most aware off. It's fun, because DRTV and online are really working hard at becoming more effective in serving advertising. Some of my clients are very eager to explore emerging media. I count my blessings for that, because I get to experiment with these media and learn what areas have the most potential and what their true ROI is.

BRAND IMPERIUM: What is happening with spending overall? Are budgets going up or down?

LAMMENS: Budgets are slightly on the up. Most companies have added media types to their marketing mix, and have additional products to support. Clients are also becoming more aware of the benefits of direct response marketing in terms of forging customer relations.