What is the difference between ATL and BTL advertising?

ATL is paid mass media (TV, radio, press, outdoor, cinema) bought for broad reach and measured on impressions and awareness. BTL is targeted and directly addressable (direct mail, point of sale, collateral, trade activity) and measured on response. Most campaigns need both.

Do you buy the media as well as make the ads?

Yes. Our media planning and buying team negotiates and places the schedule, so production and placement are handled by one agency rather than two briefs.

Is ATL still worth it when everything is going digital?

For categories where the whole market is the audience, FMCG, retail, telecoms, launches, mass media still moves awareness faster than anything else. The usual answer is not ATL or digital, it is ATL for reach and digital for conversion.

Service

ATL Advertising

Mass-reach media, when the job is to be seen by everyone.

Above-the-line advertising is the broad end of the funnel: paid mass media bought for reach rather than precision. When you are launching a product, entering a category or building a brand that has to be known before it can be chosen, this is the work that does it.

We handle the whole chain, the idea, the production and the buying. Television and radio commercials, press advertising in the region's national titles, outdoor across billboards, bus shelters, transit and mall media, and cinema. Because our media planning and buying team sits in the same building as the creative team, the idea is built for the format it will run in rather than retrofitted to it.

ATL is often paired with BTL and digital in a single campaign, which is what a 360-degree agency is for. Reach builds the awareness; the targeted channels convert it.

What this includes

Television commercials: concept, production and adaptation
Radio advertising: scripting, casting and production
Press advertising: newspapers and magazines
Outdoor and OOH: billboards, unipoles, bus shelters and transit
Mall and airport media
Cinema advertising
Campaign key visuals and master adaptation

What it gets you

Awareness at scale, in the channels the whole market sees
One key visual that adapts cleanly from a 48-sheet to a press strip
Media weight placed where your audience actually is, not where it is cheapest

Prism Advertising above-the-line work, television, radio, press and outdoor campaigns

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Common questions

ATL Advertising,
answered

What is the difference between ATL and BTL advertising?: ATL is paid mass media (TV, radio, press, outdoor, cinema) bought for broad reach and measured on impressions and awareness. BTL is targeted and directly addressable (direct mail, point of sale, collateral, trade activity) and measured on response. Most campaigns need both.
Do you buy the media as well as make the ads?: Yes. Our media planning and buying team negotiates and places the schedule, so production and placement are handled by one agency rather than two briefs.
Is ATL still worth it when everything is going digital?: For categories where the whole market is the audience, FMCG, retail, telecoms, launches, mass media still moves awareness faster than anything else. The usual answer is not ATL or digital, it is ATL for reach and digital for conversion.