Direct Line established high levels of recall among consumers. In September 2014, the brand worked with Saatchi and Saatchi to relaunch its advertising, using Hollywood actor Harvey Keitel as Winston Wolfe, a Mafia style 'fixer'. The company had one million customers after eight years. The company expanded with a series of new offshoots in the 1990s. In 1995, a Spanish offshoot, Linea Direct, started offering motor insurance in Spain. They expanded into travel insurance in 1996, pet insurance in 1997, and Direct Line Breakdown started offering breakdown insurance in 1998. Their non general insurance products umbrella Direct Line Financial services launched their
Direct response television driving phone calls to 1-800-iopener or Netpliance.com in Super Bowl XXXIV. Anticipating high response they obtained additional web hosting services in order to support direct response web traffic from the advertisement. During the 2009 Super Bowl XLIII, Cash 4 Gold ran a national advertisement during the Super Bowl. This was erroneously reported to be the first DRTV ad in Super Bowl history. Direct response television Direct response television (DRTV) is any television advertising that asks consumers to respond directly to the company — usually either by calling an toll-free telephone number, sending an SMS message, or by visiting a web