Technical advancement, development around web 2.0, new-generation information and comm technology and the emergence of social media merged the line between ATL and BTL marketing. Through the line or TTL Marketing, the new buzzword reduces corporates’ competitive positions, intensifies the engagement of consumers and empowered them (Efthymios Constantinides, 2014).

TTL marketing, a cusp of Above the line marketing (ATL) and Below the line marketing (BTL) has emerged as a new way of marketing and reaching consumers. Technological changes in the marketplace, especially digital media and social media become a lucrative advertisement platform with the opportunity for any company to build consumer–brand relationship. 

ATL and BTL Marketing-How do they differ?

Above the line advertisements are targeted towards the mass market and the media having mass coverage and reach, are traditionally used for ATL ads. TV, Radio, Newspapers, Magazines, Hoarding, Outdoor places and Press are heavily used to reach to masses because of their high coverage and penetration level. They help marketers create brand awareness and information about any new products/services. ATL advertisements are excellent in building brands and often transform a local brand into a national brand. A very good example is Byju’s ad on Television and Radio where Shahrukh Khan was the endorser and made Byju a national brand. Another example could be the ad of Fogg perfume- ‘Keya chal raha hai- Fogg chal raha hai”, the tag line advertised repetitively in TV channel which has increased the brand awareness enormously in the entire nation.   

Below the line advertising has its own advantages. Often known as direct marketing, BTL ads are created to reach to a specific target audience and use direct mail, phone, event sponsorships, and in-store advertisements. Various point of sale promotions like coupons, free samples are used to get the customers to react to the ad instantly and gives a very high ROI. These types of advertisements can be tailor-made and act as good rescues for local brands and companies with limited advertisement budgets. Because of its capacity to reach to a specific target audience, BTL promotions are easily tracked, controlled and returns can be measured. Personal selling and door to door selling are also some types of BTL marketing. Dominos, Swiggy are excellent in BTL advertising where the companies send offers, discounts to specific target customers and more coupons are sent to those who purchase frequently.

What is TTL marketing and how the line between ATL and BTL is smudged?

TTL marketing is an integrated marketing approach where along with mass promotion the ad campaign has some component to react to the advertisement directly. For example, placing an ad on social media has a wider reach and gives the opportunity to reach the company with a click.

The advertisement of ISME, a leading B-school’s PhD program on the Facebook page is an excellent example of TTL advertising where the teaching fraternity, as well as corporate personnel, are targeted. Facebook has a wide reach and at the same time through the personal contacts of faculty members, the teaching fraternity is exposed to this message. Facebook is one of the most common social hangout platforms, is heavily used by people and can maintain its dominant position in social media platforms. TTL works through popular social media platforms like, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all of them can reach a large number of people. Through social networking sites, interested people can share any preferred advertisement in their circles and be able to generate leads. The option to make any paid advertisement into an organic ad is available, once the campaign can reach a certain number of clicks and share. TTL has all the advantages of BTL advertisements where a company can measure the number of visits in the webpage, reaction or followers in a blog post, click-through rate in any digital ads and sponsorship. Though the visual appeal, impression and image created by a Television ad are nowhere comparable with the impression created by an ad posted on social media.   

Is Social Media Marketing the same as TTL Marketing?

Social media marketing and digital marketing have removed the barrier between ATL and BTL which was once coined by Proctor and gamble in 1954. Social media are classified into different categories based on social presence, media richness and self-presentation or self-disclosure. Youtube is categorised as content communities, Facebook is an example social networking site, LinkedIn is known as a Professional community, Twitter is a Microblogging site. (Kaplan and Heinlein, 2010; Mangold and Faulds 2009). 

According to Felix, Philipp A. Rauschnabel, Chris Hinsch (2016) social media marketing is an interdisciplinary and cross-functional concept that uses social media (often in combination with other communications channels) to achieve organizational goals by creating value for stakeholders. Various social media are used to communicate promotional messages to the consumers, end-users and other stakeholders. The best part of social media marketing is when communication is directly shared by other consumers who have experienced the product or service. It adds a lot of credentials, trust and authenticity and acts as a great source of word of mouth to potential consumers. For example, when a student of an institute shares his experience with a future student via Facebook or Twitter, the influence is much higher than any other form of advertising. Social media marketing can act as both ATL and BTL. For example, when general advertisement campaigns in Facebook, not targeted to a very specific niche circle it is a case of ATL marketing. But if any ad posted by a company in Facebook is shared by anyone to his close circle, the same message may act as BTL advertising. Similarly, any retweet on a given ad on Twitter works as Below the line advertising. 

Social media acts as a source of customers’ voice through blogs, online communities, web content, forums, podcasts etc. Marketers nowadays are less dependent on the traditional methods of collecting customer voice through a focus group, surveys and other market research methods. Influential bloggers who have huge followers are identified by the marketers to promote any campaign and they act as great online opinion leaders than regular celebrities. 

A 360-degree marketing approach called TTL marketing or Through the line marketing has become a buzzword because of the heavy usage of digital marketing, digital promotion and social media marketing. Any ad campaign promoted on a national television displaying a toll-free number asking customers to call or a newspaper ad with a QR code to be scanned to place an order is some good examples of TTL marketing which offer the advantage of both brand building as well as getting a high level of conversions. A recent ad on Youtube by Loreal on how to combat sexual harassment in public spaces by joining a training program at “Standup-india.com” is excellent TTL marketing. It can reach masses and measure the conversion rate. At any point of communication, the marketer should promote a consistent and clear message about a product or brand using a TTL marketing approach via social media, mass media or digital media and get maximum benefit in terms of reach, image building and conversion.