Adspeak- Above/Below the line ..!!!

A term that originated (probably) in the book keeping departments of advertising agencies and sued TO DESCRIBE advertising aimed at the genral public that is hard to escape, especially TV and Radio commercials ,print ads and postes and out door even. LINE is a term that initially used to distingush between advertising mass media that pay COMMISSION to agencies( above the Line) and others who do not fall under the line...


The definitions for sure owe a lot to the historical development of advertising agencies and how they charged for their services... (today the scene has changes in many areas, drastically but the ghost of the past remains). In a nutshell, 'above-the-line' is any work done involving media where a commission is taken by an advertising agency, and 'below-the-line' is work done for a client where a standard charge(fees) replaces commission.

An advertising agency’s clients did not pay directly for its services;( the agency made its money as sales agent for the media). Hope the past tense is noted....Press, TV, outdoor, radio and cinema were above the line; direct mail, PR, sales promotions of various sorts, events and sponsorships were generally below.

Originally, advertising agencies would offer all these services and could subsidise the below-the-line activities with the commissions from the others. Over time, below-the-line activities became more specialized and separate agencies grew up to deal with them,( Thanks to the money makers who changed the communications industry horizons) and as advertisers negotiated to have rebates on commissions or to switch to fee payment, the economics of the old-style full service became unsustainable.

Two factors have largely contributed to the rise of the BTL on par with ATL...

one, With increasing consumer fragmentation and rising pressure on marketing communication to create brands and sustain branding pressures, BTL activities started substituting ATL activities and thus, there has been a steady growth in BTL expenditure.

two, a major impact of the economic slowdown was on marketing and advertising spends which started looking for accountability for every rupee spend and ROI in the short term became important and coupled with the consumption expenditure which fell BTL had to grow....

Today a wide range of communications agencies offer specialized services, so that a brand’s communications are normally fragmented among a number of different suppliers(I contract, ray and Keshavan, Mudra Max, Ogilvy Action, 141 Sercon, JWT Encompass, and RMG Connect are just a few examples).....

The expressions above and below the line linger on, but there is now much talk about the importance of “integrated marketing”, or “through the line” which is about how best to bring back together the fragmented pattern of activities in the better interests of the client. The Incredible India campaign,Commonwealth Youth Games 2008, Pepsi Blue Billion campaign,Pepsodent Bhoot Police campaign, Grand Kerala shopping campaign etc are amongst a few which have used these integrated route and was seen "on the line" .