How do you create stand out for a
client in a TV schedule awash with
January Sale ads? Get a voice-over
that everyone recognises and is so
relevant to the market, that’s how.
Support it with press and you’ve
got a co-ordinated campaign that
punches well above its weight. Easy.

"As you (probably) expect I’ve given you great scores. Filling it in just reminded me what a great job that you and Alice and your team do for us – without doubt the best supplier I’ve ever worked with – I really appreciate the time and effort (and talent) that you put into looking after us."

Richard Read, Serious Readers

"We have been impressed from the off with the insight that AJ have been able to gain so quickly into our business model. Their ability to analyse and interpret the results has meant that they have also been able to achieve the target cost per lead quicker than expected."

Marketing Manager, Regional Hearing Services.

‘’ Since July 2008 Attinger Jack has provided LTGL Ltd with an innovative, adaptive and responsive DM solution which is a rarity in today’s market place. Over the last 12 months they have worked hard, consistently and in a focused way to deliver a high volume of new customers to my business in a cost effective way. Their attention to detail, ability to deliver the right creative and also interpret the results and move forward effectively has accelerated the growth, enhanced profitability and projected the GardenBargains.com and the business rapidly forward.’’

Managing Director of Lead The Good Life Limited

"The most important part of the testimonial I can provide is about the experience and confidence of the team. Tim and Alice’s certainty about a 60 second advert being what we needed to get our message across was the thing that carried the whole project to success. I was very sceptical, and if they had not been so sure of their ground we could so easily have stumbled into a nondescript “standard length” advert that would not have been up to the task. And although we already had the initial concept for the advert, Tim and the production team turned this into a highly professional finished article, which is now doing more for us than a “mere” DRTV advert."

Marketing Director, Toolstation

"I have personally worked with Attinger Jack for nearly 14 years and the Company over 17 years and can honestly say they are a pleasure to deal with. I work closely with my dedicated media planner, Helen Gower who does a brilliant job of getting the best deal for us and working to our budgets. I am also in contact with Ann Gardiner daily about all aspects of media projects and she is extremely good at progressing them, ensuring deadlines are met and generating new ideas to increase our business. We have been extremely impressed with a recent campaign they did for us where they designed some recommend a friend cards which has resulted in a substantial amount of additional business for us. Tim Blackshaw and his team are particularly good at designing our adverts, marketing material and TV campaigns. We have regular review meetings with the whole team and feel their dedication to our companies second to none. I would have no hesitation in recommending Attinger Jack."

Marketing Director, Aquability

With a production cost of £16,000
and a media spend of £20,000 over
240 quality leads were generated
over a 2-week airtime period.

With a production cost of just
£6000 and a media spend of
£10,000 over £30,000 of tracked
sales were generated over a
4 week period.

With a production cost of £7500
and a media spend of £25,000
over 170 quality leads were
generated over a 2-week
airtime period.

With a production cost of just
£5,500 and a media spend of
£10,000 Bathrooms.com saw an
increase in web traffic of 58%
during the 2 week campaign.

Richard Read, Serious Readers

Marketing Manager, Regional Hearing Services.

Managing Director of Lead The Good Life Limited

Marketing Director, Toolstation

Marketing Director, Aquability

The hardest working
direct response
advertising agency in the UK

At AJ we are all working from home, but fully operational and very much open for business.

Our media buying team are working hard at getting the very best deals, our creative studio is fully functioning, producing news ads and re sizes everyday.

We are helping our clients to make the best of the current situation, we are bursting with ideas, deals and opportunies so if you are interested to see if we could help then please get in touch.

Richard Read, Serious Readers

Marketing Manager, Regional Hearing Services.

Managing Director of Lead The Good Life Limited

Marketing Director, Toolstation

Marketing Director, Aquability

Welcome to the
buying power
behind direct response
press advertising
in the UK

Who
Are We?

AJ is a full service, Direct Response advertising agency based in Bath. We’re unique in terms of the cyclical and structured process in the way we work; starting with initial analysis then developing responsive creative through to testing a multitude of different ideas.

We are also one of the leading late space buyers in the UK, continually finding smarter ways to make our clients’ media budgets work harder.

AJ’s media trading floor source unbeatable daily deals and late space offers from newspapers, magazines and television stations. The result is better prices and a wealth of opportunities for all our clients to increase response and reduce cost.

In addition, we offer the added benefit of free creative* thereby keeping production expenditure to a minimum and reducing insertion costs still further.

*Based on minimum spend of £25k.

Different
How?

First and foremost we believe effective Direct Response needs to be fully accountable. That’s why everything we do for our clients has to deliver a measureable result. It’s fundamental to how we work and something we believe passionately in. To maximise that effectiveness we don’t just create ads that work harder we work harder too. We never give up. We never simply blame the market, red tape, product or title for lack of response. Any underperforming ad is quickly refined or replaced. A constant stream of new ideas also enables us to test one against the other to find what works best. At which point, we exploit its potential to the full. This proven formula has led to success after success and an amazing track record for growing clients’ businesses.

Disaster into
opportunity?

How can we turn a disaster into an opportunity?

If lockdown has forced you to ‘shut up shop’ but you still have products, stock, overheads and bills to pay then we might be able to help. If your products or services can be sold remotely, via your website, then promoting them in newspapers could be the perfect solution for you.

You might think nobody reads newspapers any more, they just go online right? Wrong! Millions of people read a newspaper every day and they have never been more heavily read than right now and with the newspapers offering free delivery for the foreseeable future there are no issues in reaching consumers.

We are seeing our highest ever response rates from press with 50% of our clients reporting their BEST EVER ads this month.

We can help businesses to trade through this period and keep the till ringing. Amazon need not be the ‘go to’ for our all needs and I would love to encourage consumers to think about who they are spending their money with and think about the businesses they want to still see when we come out of this.

Now is the time to stick your head above the water and we can throw you a lifejacket!

We offer: free advice, free creative, free planning and strategy – all you pay for is your advert to appear in the newspaper.

Usually we have a minimum spend of £20,000 – but I am removing this as I truly believe that with just a few ads we can prove that we can make profit for you off the page. Equally, if I don’t think the product/margin/proposition is right and it isn’t the right solution for you I will be totally honest. If you would be interested in finding out more then please fill in this online form and I will be in contact with you shortly.

Alice Buttling, Managing Director

Contact Us

We Never
Give Up

At AJ we see any difficulty as a challenge, rather than a problem. We are highly skilled at finding a way round an issue whilst still conveying the benefits. We are a results driven agency and therefore on a daily basis we are micro reviewing clients advertising performance. If results are fatiguing then rather than accepting the decision, we continue testing and refining until we get the right results.

“All agencies claim to be different, you actually are. I had given up on press completely, now I am excited about it again.”
Stephen @ Wallace Sacks.

“Another record breaking week of sales for us last week – beating the record from the previous week - followed by a very strong weekend and today. Adverts not the only contributor of course but a significant factor. Thanks to all at AJ for doing a fantastic job!!”
Richard @ Serious Readers

All Thomas Sanderson adverts are coded and the contact centre is very strong at requesting codes and allocating responses to individual adverts. From this, they can track right through to sales.

All this information is logged on to their intranet system which AJ accesses daily. AJ therefore has a ‘real time’ picture of what is working and uses this to optimise schedules on an ongoing basis. In conjunction with this, we use a TV attribution system which attributes website visits back to individual TV spots.

What this ‘total transparency’ means for us:

Access to data, including: number of brochures generated, conversion to appointment, conversion to sale, cost of sale, average order value.
Complete overview of how every media channel is working at any one time.
Detailed understanding of which are the best-performing press titles, TV channels, lead generation providers.
Detailed understanding of which pieces of copy are working best.

What this ‘total transparency’ means for the client:

We plan on results making sure all schedules are optimised in order to deliver the greatest volume possible of high-quality response.
We use the response data to negotiate with media owners to reduce rates and bring down the cost of sale.

Over the three years they have been working with us, Thomas Sanderson’s results have improved significantly which has led to the doubling of media budgets during the same period.

For the same budget as the previous year, with a combination of new copy and titles, testing and learning as the campaign built and adding in TV, we generated 40% more leads and exceeded the target by 15%.

Using a combination of unique phone numbers and codes that all linked to a free installation offer, we were able to drill down and discover the best performing press titles and advertorials. Working with the same offer, we also used Adalyser tracking on TV to identify the best performing TV channels.

With a production cost of £16,000
and a media spend of £20,000 over
240 quality leads were generated
over a 2-week airtime period.

Incentivising the customer to quote a code has not only improved the results in terms of volumes of orders, but has also added attribution to their previously disappointing campaign.

Knowledge of each insertion has meant we can test different creative executions with confidence; by finding the bankers we have turned press around from not working to being the lead source of sales and from being seasonal to becoming active 12 months of the year.

Spend has increased from a small test budget to a substantial spend and the attributed ROI has increased by 500%. This is a combination of increased volume of sales but also the improved attribution due to the free gift means that the sales are being tracked back to source much more efficiently.

With over 300 ads running per quarter, using a unique code for each ad allows us to drill down into the best titles, sizes, sections, copy and day of week, not only looking at the cost per lead and volume of leads but also the conversion to appointment and sale.

This ensures we achieve the perfect balance of quantity and quality. Working in this way has enabled us to grow the business from spending £30k a month to £180k a month whilst maintaining the marketing percentage.

50% of Jubilee Mint orders are still via coupons so using coupon codes and codes next to phone numbers has enabled us to closely track the best performing titles and positions in newspapers and magazines.

The confidence in these results has allowed us to negotiate block booking deals in a number of titles, reducing the cost of the space and also securing the best positions and so ensuring the best ROI.

Wallace Sacks offer customers up to 80% discount when inputting a specific code at checkout or quoting when purchasing by phone.

With a real-time login to their sales intranet, AJ are analysing not only the publications, sizes and sections, but also the sales to the individual products within the ads too. We then use this data on a daily basis to plan the next week’s campaign.

Daily reporting to the client shows them exactly what return they are getting from their advertising and this has seen the ROI improve by 25% and the spend increase by 400%.

Case Study

Knowing What works

In a world where customer journeys are increasingly complex and fragmented, attributing a sale or enquiry to a specific channel can be difficult. If conventional attribution methods are no longer working for you we can help.

We use a series of tools to enhance the accuracy and quality of attribution across all media. This results in more effective media planning, delivery lower cost per leads and improving the ROI.

You can see two examples of how we have delivered transparency on our clients advertising performance.

Production budget £20,000.
In a market full of expensive,
glamorous hair product commercials,
AJ matched them and delivered
the product benefits for far less.

Case Study

Maximising
A Winner

Our Direct Response philosophy is to create profitable off the page advertising for all our clients. Three key elements contribute towards this - a desirable product with a good offer, responsive creative and the right media cost. Once an advertisement has appeared, our first port of call is to look at the response analysis. If we find the response is particularly robust we discuss with the client its roll-out potential within the confines of their advertising budget.

Case Study

We Grow
Businesses

For all our clients, our single-minded goal at AJ is to grow their business. This becomes a win, win, win situation for the client, the media and for the agency. To deliver this, we have four clear objectives:

	Produce responsive creative and a continual range of fresh ideas.
	Buy media at the lowest possible cost and develop ongoing testing strategies.
	For our clients to produce a desirable range of products with great offers.
	Once active in the marketplace we need continued refinement, which we address via regular analysis review meetings.

With the hugely successfull “NAIL IT” commercial, first in the TV trilogy, we added a range of off-the-page press ads.

AJ started working with Toolstation in 2005 when they were just 12 months old. DRTV was used to build a database via a brochure request (delivering a CPL 2% below its nearest competitor). Toolstation's database grew rapidly and store launches began database mailing with a 8 mile radius ensuring instant footfall. Investment from Travis Perkins allowed rapid store aquisition, with an average 3 stores opening per month until they reached 100 stores nationwide. Travis Perkins bought the remaining shares for complete ownership in 2012

Second commercial, “Hokey Cokey” was established to drive footfall whilst still building the Toolstation database via brochure requests.

Third commercial, “The Heist” focused on driving viewers to their website and brand building.

Case Study

Spreading The Message

One of the strategies we first recommend to help grow a client's business is to establish press as a strong and reliable response channel. Once this is in place, we then look at testing a range of other media vehicles such as inserts, online, TV, radio. The different advertising environments these vehicles sit in enable us to reach different audiences and increase lead volume. We have particular expertise in DRTV, creating low cost, high impact commercials that sustain long-term repeat viewing and generate impressive response levels.

We met with Martin Brennan in May 2010. He had an enterprising product to sell called the JB7. Initially Martin’s business was a self contained operation, but over a period of time we demonstrated to him that we could help grow his business . We first reviewed his exisiting activity, identifing the winners and looking at how we could improve his marginal performing titles. From this we were able to slowly grow his press activity. We did this via titles, sections, sizes, and positions. During this period we also grew his creative portfolio. Once press was firmly established we then looked at testing other media such as inserts, online, TV and radio, reaching different audiences in different environments with a large portfolio of creative.

Keeping Things Fresh

It is of paramount importance at AJ that we continually come up with new ideas for our clients whether offer, media or creative led. We regularly review a client's response analysis in order to identify when and where fatigue is setting in and then make the appropriate changes to the advertising to rejuvenate performance levels. Other ways AJ delivers new advertising ideas to our clients is by organically brain storming, having discussions with the media and then coming up with a creative idea to match.

Meet the team

Everybody Has The Culture

The Team at AJ is driven to achieve the very best for our clients. Everybody understands how the AJ business model works and what we need to achieve as individuals. We believe we work harder at this goal than any other agency. Whatever it takes to achieve the best for our clients, we do it. Every day the team is asked to do the impossible, from working to very tight deadlines to our receptionist pulling us out of meetings based on a media rep offering us free space with 5 minutes to prepare the artwork.

Alice Buttling-Smith
Media & Managing director

x
Alice Buttling-Smith, Media & Managing Director/Joint owner

Media is key at AJ and Alice’s many years of experience have made her one of the best buyers there is. No one generates greater value from a client's budget or a better return on investment.
Ann Gardiner
Client service director

x
Ann Gardiner, Client service director/Joint owner

At AJ we want our clients to feel cared for as well as successful. Ann does a great job of liaising between client, media, creative and production and keeping everybody happy.
Tim Blackshaw
Creative director

x
Tim Blackshaw, Creative director

A true all rounder with many years of brand as well as direct response experience. Tim is the best in the business for being able to produce impactful, highly responsive advertising that looks good too.
Vicki Hampton
Financial controller

x
Vicki Hampton, Financial controller

With AJ’s spending many thousands of pounds on media bookings every day cashflow is crucial to ensure everything runs smoothly. Vicki does an amazing job of making this happen.
Lesley Bowman
New business director

x
Lesley Bowman, New business director

A difficult job but one that Lesley handles with relish thanks to AJ’s wealth of experience across a wide spectrum of products and services. She also never gives up!
Gillian Orford
Office Administrator

x
Gillian, Office Administrator

A key role here at AJ, with media owners constantly calling with late space opportunities, it's important they’re passed through to the right person as quickly as possible. Gill does this seamlessly and keeps the agency running smoothly on a day-to-day basis.
Jack Gillett
Media Executive

x
Jack Gillett, Media Executive

A great relationship builder, Jack’s key role is providing our clients with the best agency service possible. Always looking for a deal, Jack’s daily contact with our publishers ensures clients benefit from the most competitive rates in the market on a regular basis.
Billie Arnold
Production and Artwork

x
Billie Arnold , Production and Artwork

Billie ensures the daily flow of media bookings into the studio is matched with the artwork needed and then dispatched in time. Additionally, her core skills include fast and accurate artworking and Billie does a great job keeping clients, publishers and the studio happy.
Sam Wakeman
Head of Studio

x
Sam Wakeman, Head of Studio

One of the most technically skilled art workers in the business, Sam’s lightening speed on the Mac enables the studio to meet the constant need to generate last minute artwork for late space bookings with ease.
Vince Hunt,
Artworker

x
Vince Hunt, Artworker

Vince’s previous experience with catalogue artworking means he’s a master of detail. A highly creative as well as professional art worker, his retouching skills are in use on a daily basis.
Rachel Powell
Artworker

x
Rachel Powell, Artworker

Talented and creative, Rachel’s fast and accurate art working is vital to our service. Rachel can react at a moment’s notice to any late demand or unexpected media booking, ensuring our clients – and the media houses – are always happy.
Helen Gower
Insert Media Planner/Buyer

x
Helen Gower, Insert Media Planner/Buyer

An integral part of the team, Helen joined AJ in 2005. An inserts specialist, what Helen doesn’t know about inserts isn’t worth knowing! Knowledgeable, patient and analytical, Helen ensures her clients benefit from great service, the keenest prices and the best results.
Jamie Home
Media Executive

x
Jamie Home, Media Executive

Jamie’s responsibilities include looking after TV advertising, primarily through BRTV and assisting the media team with the planning/buying process. His background in customer service and audio engineering enables him to balance strong relationship management with technical knowhow.
Fiona Carruthers
Media Executive

x
Fiona Carruthers, Media Executive

With many years’ experience in marketing and communications Fiona helps AJ shout about our services and achievements. Her expertise in tailoring communications to key target audiences, gained in the UK and New Zealand, means Fiona is ideally placed to get the right message out there.

Illustrations by Sam Wakeman

Example

We Insist On Trying New Things

Testing is of paramount importance for our clients at AJ. This gives us an opportunity to see if a new idea is worth rolling out. Typically and when appropriate, we perform A/B testing primarily in the Daily Telegraph - an accurate way of establishing the performance of the test through simply providing two media codes and advising the client's call centre of this test. The following 9 varied testing ideas were developed by AJ with the support of our clients.

Telegraph Weekend

Telegraph Main News

Telegraph Gardening

Telegraph Property

Telegraph Home

1. Bad creative?

Agency “X” told the client it was product not the creative that was delivering poor responses.
2. First creative

AJ’s first visual that ran in the Daily Telegraph, noticeable differences; headline, images, what the customer receives, price point graphics, ideas for the customer once he has picked the fruit off the trees, graphic for “go to view online”, clear call to action, guarantee panel.
3. Time for a refresh

After 18 months of strong response the results were showing slight fatigue so we refreshed the creative with: upsells, better imagery, uniformed price points and a revised cost by the client.
4. Incentives

After a further 12 months we introduced a free incentive for the Winter season and the client returned to the higher price point.
5. We never stop refining

After a further 12 months we introduced another citrus product, a new upsell and kept the free incentive and renamed the product “The Mini Citrus Grove”.

Previous creative

New AJ creative

New AJ Creative – We focused on bringing the trousers to the forefront of the ad, emphasising the seasonality and introduced brochure request.
Previous creative

New AJ creative

New AJ Creative – Focusing on the vegetable imagery to emphasise the organic freshness, making the offer bigger and telling the true story of Riverford.
Previous creative

New AJ creative

New AJ Creative – Simple changes such as: placing a Lemon in the ad to emphasis the product, using a yellow tint to bring out the copy and a more stand out headline.
Previous creative

New AJ creative

New AJ Creative – We brought more structure to the proposition and communicated clearly the benefits on offer.

In safe hands

Our Great Heritage

Attinger Jack began in Bridport, Dorset in 1980 and is now one of the UK's biggest buyers of short term media.

Founder David Attinger built on his background in direct sales to create a hardworking, focused advertising agency with a common drive - to make efficient, hard-hitting Direct Response advertising. A reputation for growing clients' businesses soon grew, borne from phenomenal success achieved from day one with little known companies such as Dial-a-Phone and Toolstation. Today, Attinger Jack is based in Bath and owned by Managing Director Alice Buttling-Smith and Client Services Director Ann Gardiner. The team has a great shared history and growing our clients' business remains the focus for everything that we do.

Alice - 07785 954565

Managing Director
Alice Buttling Smith joined Attinger Jack in the accounts department in 1995. She is now recognised as one of the best media buyers in the business and an expert at getting the most for a client from their budget.
Ann - 07876 325718

Client Services Director
Ann Gardiner arrived in 2005, with an impressive background running major accounts within well established Ad agencies in London. She oversees all acount handling and client management.
Tim - 07787 536540

Creative Director
Tim Blackshaw has provided creative genius to the team for nearly 20 years and continues to lead our talented team of artworkers and designers, driving the best direct response creative in the business.

How it works

Why Free
Creative?

At AJ we offer free* creative to encourage clients to test and to make their ads perform to the best possible response level. The defining factor is delivering profitable advertising to ensure the process continues. It is in everyone's interest for the ads to be successful; the client, the media and at AJ. Our business model makes this more likely to deliver.

*Based on minimum spend of £25k.

How To Get In Touch

AJ is a specialist Direct Response, full service advertising agency. We hope we have been able to clearly demonstrate how we work and proved that we can deliver across all areas relating to Direct Response advertising.

If you would like to meet with us to discuss either one stage or two stage advertising, please call Lesley Bowman on;
01225 758222
or email Lesley@aja.co.uk or

The Malt House, 17-20 Sydney Buildings, Bath, BA2 6BZ

Happy clients

A Few Kind Words

Client retention is of utmost importance to everyone at AJ and it is always nice to feel appreciated for all the effort and hard work we deliver to our clients across all the different skill sets.

Case Study

BRTV website

Why Risk When You Can Test

TV is a fantastically effective medium for Direct Response as well as Brand. If you've never been on TV before, have a limited budget or just want to explore TV's potential then TEST TV is simply made for you. TEST TV can offer you a choice of complete script to screen packages starting from as little as £20,000. TEST TV's experienced in-house production capability and shrewd media buying will also ensure your commercial not only looks good but offers an excellent return on your investment too. AJ can also provide higher levels of production to match your increased media spend through our sister company BRTV.

Who we work with

As part of our overall direct response strategy, we're constantly developing new creative for our clients as well as fine tuning existing work to ensure we maximise response at all times. Our business model of free creative, means our clients enjoy high performance adverts that really deliver results yet at no cost to themselves.

NEW work

We Deliver

Achieving the results we deliver for our clients involves a lot of hard work from everybody in the agency. In the process, we create an amazing amount of adverts, a staggering amount of artwork and make a huge amount of media bookings at short-term rates. The following film shows you, in one year alone, just how much. The figures are quite amazing.

Working with us

Current jobs.

Sorry, there are currently no positions open at this time.

New opportunities

Happy clients

Making a difference

Kinetico Campaign

Wallace Sacks Campaign

Eden Verandas Campaign

Bathrooms.com Campaign

Happy clients

Making a difference

The hardest working direct response advertising agency in the UK

Happy clients

Making a difference

Welcome to the buying power behind direct response press advertising in the UK

Who Are We?

Different How?

Disaster into opportunity?

Contact Us

We Never Give Up

Thomas Sanderson

What this ‘total transparency’ means for us:

What this ‘total transparency’ means for the client:

Kinetico

Serious Readers

Aquability

Jubilee Mint

Wallace Sacks

Knowing What works

Nourkrin Campaign

Heading

Nested5

Maximising A Winner

You Garden Snowdrops

We Grow Businesses

Toolstation

Spreading The Message

Brennan

Keeping Things Fresh

Aquability - ideas

Idea of the month

Everybody Has The Culture

Nested8

Working together

Social Media

We Insist On Trying New Things

Testing Offers

Testing New titles

Testing sections

Testing images

Testing headlines

Testing styles

Testing price points

Testing models

Testing sizes

We buy Smarter

How it works

Judge for yourself

Our Great Heritage

Safe pair of hands

Shared learnings

New opportunities

Why Free Creative?

How To Get In Touch

A Few Kind Words

Why Risk When You Can Test

Aquability

Mistral

Tesoro

Nationwide Mobility

Serious Readers

Brennan

Cafe Pod

The Cashmere Centre

The Pearl Company

James Alexander

David Salisbury

Harrington & Byrne

Mountfield

Eden Verandas

Who we work with

We Deliver

The hardest working
direct response
advertising agency in the UK

Welcome to the
buying power
behind direct response
press advertising
in the UK

Who
Are We?

Different
How?

Disaster into
opportunity?

We Never
Give Up

Maximising
A Winner

We Grow
Businesses

Why Free
Creative?