40 Business View Magazine - September 2016
There’s a tremendous amount of opportunity in that
space, both at sea, as well as on land, doing targeted,
themed festivals. Our business model is evolving in
that direction; it takes advantage of a lot of the things
that we do very, very well and we think there’s a sig-
nificant revenue opportunity for us for the foreseeable
future.”
While Direct Holdings has taken the very best of the
older, Time Life business model, evolved it into a mod-
ern, multi-channel marketer with an expanded portfo-
lio of products and services, Hearing is not unmind-
ful of the fact that the industry in which it functions
continues to change with lighting speed. “Historically,
it was TV-driven,” he says. “You put a commercial on
air and people picked up the phone, called an 800
number, and ordered their product. Today, we’re still
putting commercials on air, but we know that for ev-
ery person who’s picking up the phone and calling us,
ten people are going to their tablet, or looking at their
phone, or sitting at a desktop and doing research, or
going to our website, or going to Amazon, or going to
all the other places, sometimes buying and sometimes
not. So, there’s a tremendous evolution in our indus-
try and, consequently, in our business, just in how we
reach consumers, and the ways we’re reaching them,
and the messages we’re using to reach them.”
Hearing believes, however, that that very shift in the
marketplace is fraught with possibilities. “It’s very dif-
ferent than it’s been in the past, but frankly, there’s far
more opportunity now to target delivery to consumers
in ways that you could never have done in a TV adver-
tising campaign,” he states. “It’s changing rapidly, but
it’s really exciting and opens up a lot of opportunity for
us as we continue to evolve.
“So, on the multi-channel side of the business, we’re
focusing our efforts on trying to find good ways to blend
content and commerce. What I mean by that is out of
