Nielsen Wire recently reported on the rise of direct response ads, which, since 2007, have seen a “remarkable 18% growth in total units” in the U.S. Currently, direct response makes up 14% of all TV advertising but is expected to gain more of the ad spend share. Nielsen attributes the potential for this growth to trendy products (e.g., the Snuggie, super absorbent towels and “language learning CDs”) that are capturing a lot of consumer attention.

Though both Spot Radio and Cable TV have seen some growth in ad units from 2007 to 2009 (with a dip in 2008 for Spot Radio), Spot TV is the only one of the three that can claim more than 2,000,000 ad units.

Nielsen further researched the trend by tracking the number of direct response national TV ads that ran in the U.S. in one week. For the week reviewed, more than 15,500 DR units aired and 88% of all U.S. TV homes watched at least one. An average of 32 ads were viewed per household.