‘As Seen on TV’: Marketing Ideas Gleaned from Infomercials

I stumbled upon this CNBC Original Episode titled “As Seen on TV,” a revealing report on the $150 billion informercial industry … I tried to take decent notes but these are, at best, paraphrases from the report from various infomercial giants … there’s some real gold here:

• “We tried to convince people of something they don’t need … yet.”
• They wanted to break through the clutter and strike an emotional cord with viewers
• Sometimes it takes more than 2 minutes to tell the product story
• The key is making a “compelling, interesting offer,” an “a lot for a little approach,” which ties in with the “But wait, there’s more!”
• One marketer said, “By the end, i’m sure people were confused by what they were getting but it was a lot.”
• The guy behind the Chia Pet had one of the best, succinct definitions of success: “My lifeblood is trying to find new products that have instrinsic value, are patentable, have proper margins, mass appeal, and you put all those together.”
• The formula is: Product + Pitch + Price = Informercial
• “We fail 90% of the time.”
• Product names need to “stick with consumer, be catchy, little fun, it can’t be too descriptive, but has to be descriptive, and let people remember it right away.”
• Attaching celebrity to what you’re selling does well — i.e. over 100 million George Foreman Grills have sold
• Optimum price is between $10-20 – “consumers don’t think twice and 99% of the time that’s where we need to be to get people to buy”
• How soon does a company know a success? Two weeks. Two weeks is called “the test”
• Sales need to be double what they spend on advertising, which is the most expensive component
• Shipping and handling is profitable aspect, and they like to get $5.95-6.95
• Retail is big for them and TV is just tool to get there
• The Ped Egg was the no. 1 seller in Walgreens, outselling Snickers candy bars
• At Walgreens, “As Seen on TV” products get prime placement, where people will make impulse buys and are the top categories in most stores

Some of the products mentioned:

• Snuggies
• Ginsu knives
• Chia Pet
• The Clapper
• Doggy Steps
• Ped Egg

P.S. — I think our household has at least 4-5 of the products mentioned. Wow! It works.