Infomercials and the Grammy Awards

What do infomercials have to do with the Grammy Awards? Nothing on the surface. But it ocured to me that in 2012 at least honest and simple seems to win the game, rather than gimmicks and pageantry.  And that same philosophy may  hold true for infomercials.

Some people in the infomercial world (or in the general advertising world as well) confuse large budgets with large ideas. A big budget with special effects, celebrities, fireworks does not necessarily do better with the public than simple, clear, direct messaging.

At the Grammy Awards, Adele, a talented singer, walked away with an award in every category she was in. She is a bit plump, a bit plain, seemingly humble and stands there just singing her heart out. You feel the emotion. She does not need crazy outfits, blue hair, foot long fingernails or nearly nude attire to command attention and connect with the audience. Infomercials are much the same way. Sometimes a simple, direct, emotional and real approach can win someone over to try a product. An infomercial with a strong premise, a simple message and a clear  solution can be very motivating.

Creativity in infomercials can involve positioning, offer structure, market segmentation, etc. It does not have to mean a crazy, wacky approach that can confuse or even lose an audience.  Emotion sells.  Always has. Always will. Emotion beats effects every time.  Unlike Superbowl advertising, whose intent it is to make you laugh, even if you never remember what the product was , infomercials should  educate, inform and inspire a purchasing decision. And, hopefully, if a consumer sees an infomercial, they will remember what the product was at the very least.

So I use Adele as inspiration. She may not have the perfect body, perfect outfit, perfect speech, but she sure captures attention. And she won me over in a very big way, snot and all.

I also took great offense that Chris Brown was allowed to perform, considering that he is a convicted abuser.  I guess it is kind of like allowing Kevin Trudeau to continue to do infomercials.  I found it in very poor taste and was hopefully not the only one who did.  At least the Grammy show ended with all the old time greats jamming.  There are also some parallels to infomercials here. Sometimes the veteran infomercial producers can outshine the newbies, as they have staying power and still know how to capture that elusive consumer.

DRTV vs SuperBowl Ads

Watching the ads on the Superbowl made me realize the power of infomercials and DRTV in general. The incredibly expensive and incomprehensible spots that some advertisers did represent every reason that I left Madison Avenue for infomercial land.  The overarching themes of so much of the advertising seemed to appeal to such a tiny sliver of the population and ignore the majority of viewers, therefore alienating rather than inviting people to their brands. I notice that no one attempted to differentiate their products or explain in any way what they even were. They just want us to laugh or even cry or be impressed with overinflated production budgets and effects. But does it make us want to buy?

The Go Daddy ads, which were borderline porno, may have appealed to a 15 year old male reading Playboy in his parent’s bathroom, but they were so offensive to females and many males as well.  I was happy to see that Go Daddy had the lowest rated ads in all the online polls. Those people clearly do not understand that as many women watch the Super Bowl as men and people older than 15 also watch the game and the ads.

Let’s talk about paying 3.5 million for a :30 spot.  As we all know, that can be a one year media budget for an infomercial and you can actually have product sales to go along with that.

The Superbowl is such a telling sign of all that is wrong with Madison Avenue branding. They are out of touch with reality, with the consumer and I just wonder how much longer the marketers are going to agree to be milked out of advertising dollars just to inflate the egos of the folks that were involved in the advertising. I also wonder when these marketers are going to wake up to accountability in advertising.

There is certainly a place for branding and a place for DRTV and infomercials. But the gap is shrinking more and more each day and one day soon they will emerge as one and guess who will be on top? ROI will rule the day.

Infomercials or News Reporting?

Watching the political debates and seeing the rebuttals from the other party really makes me think. Why do the networks allow  infomercials for political candidates to be broadcast as programming or reporting, yet when infomercials attempt to communicate information to the public in a news reporting style and PAY FOR THE MEDIA TO DO SO they can be called on by regulators to cease and desist because they may be defrauding the public?

Something has gone very wrong with the way that infomercials are being regulated and scrutinized. I am all for protecting the public against scams, criminals, scoundrels, and thieves.  However, I do believe that regulation of all advertising has gone way over the edge and affected not just all infomercial marketers, but also general advertisers in a most destructive way. And the over regulation has helped to aggravate an already poor business climate.

How free is a country that prohibits an infomercial advertiser to be able to even say what their product does without fear of  regulatory backlash?  How free is a country that ties the hands of the entrepreneurs that invent and create innovative products and wish to unveil them in an infomercial format? How backwards is a country that will allow politicians to sell themselves in an infomercial or reality TV format to the American consumer and networks sell advertising time to allow them to do so?

If all was fair and right with infomercial advertising, the politicians should be paying for the media time the way that infomercial advertisers do. Perhaps if the politicians had to pay for their media time, they might have a better appreciation of what infomercial marketers have to go through and would be more amenable to relax the regulations so that we can get this economy moving again in the right direction.  Check out some of Avalanche’s infomercials at www.avalanchecreative.tv

 

Infomercial Confessions Continued

As an infomercial producer, one who has produced some very big, hit infomercials that have run for many years, I admit that news items can certainly still steal our thunder.  Are people really going to want to order a diet or beauty product instead of watching Joe Paterno’s funeral, Newt Gingrich’s media critiques or the latest heavy metal child singing about her pet on You Tube?  We have some tough competition out there, not just on TV, but online and on mobile as well.

How many tummy busters will sell as we are watching an Italian ship sink? How many business opportunity books will sell as we are watching GIs peeing on the enemy?  How much wrinkle cream will we sell as we are searching the internet for more and more and the long tails become humongous tails?

I can tell you my dreams are getting weirder and weirder.  It’s like all the thousands of impressions shot at me each day are all jumbled up in epic dreams filled with color and with casts of thousands. Speaking of color, so sad about Kodak, isn’t it?  I remember predicting the death of film years back and people thought I was insane. Well, I confess, I am insane, but I was right about that.

As the world speeds by, how to we, as infomercial producers, stop the world for just a moment, so that the consumer is intrigued enough to come in for just enough of a fraction of time to be interested? Stop the world, I want to get off! Doesn’t it just go too fast sometimes?

My new theory is that we need to slow everything down and simplify because people have so much on their plate the last thing they need is more confusion, so I am going simple.  S I M P L E.

 

Infomercial Queen for a Day

There is a wonderful project called “Smart Girls Way” which was started by some smart entrepreneurial women to feature successful female business owners to inspire others and help mentor young women considering starting their own businesses.  They created a program within Smart Girls Way called the 100 X 100.  They feature a video of each of 100 woman that they have chosen to honor on each of 100 days. Today is my day.  I may be the infomercial Queen Bee at Avalanche every day, but today, just for today, I, the infomercial Queen, am the featured video today on the Smart Girls Way site.  While I am usually the person behind the camera, I am this time in front of the camera, which is weird and strange and a bit uncomfortable. It’s pretty hard talking about yourself and your accomplishments, but I managed to do it for the cause. We are all very busy and I value your time, but I promised them I would share the link, so here it is below. Have a great and productive day and thanks for watching.

DRTV Infomercial Production Company Avalanche Creative Services Receives 2011 Best of Business Award.

NEW YORK, January, 18th 2012, Avalanche Creative Services, Inc. a leader in direct response television advertising, has been selected for the 2011 Best of Business Award by the Small Business Commerce Association (SBCA). The SBCA Community is dedicated to helping people understand that running a business is an obtainable goal and that everyone should try their best at living their dreams. The SBCA Community 2011 Best of Business Award winners are a valuable asset to their community and exemplify what makes small businesses great.

“In these troubling economic times, it is imperative that consumers have the opportunity to learn of new products and services that can help them solve problems.  Infomercials are an excellent way to communicate information and educate the consumer in addition to just selling a product. Infomercials are not just about cheap gadgets, there is a whole other world out there which involves promoting quality products and services.  Avalanche’s Award helps to validate the integrity of the growing infomercial business community and we are thrilled to be honored again by the SBCA.”  – Ava Seavey, President of Avalanche.

Avalanche Creative Services, Inc. is a forward-thinking infomercial producer that doesn’t do traditional “yell & sell” direct response television. Striving to do creative, branded direct response commercials, Avalanche maintains the focus on what’s important: making the phones ring for their clients. Avalanche has created and executed hundreds of DRTV commercials and infomercials in the health & wellness, beauty, house and home, pet care, and financial categories and has generated over a billion dollars in sales for their clients in both English and Spanish languages.

CONTACT:
Jen Chaird, Account Manager

http://www.avalanchecreative.tv

Infomercial Confessions

I’m sharing some secret confessions of a veteran infomercial producer. I have been involved in infomercials for top end, world renowned clients, all the way down to the inventor with a prototype, a dream, and limited capital to launch a product. I have met lunatics, brilliant strategists, criminals, con men, angels, space rangers, passionate zealots, every day janes and joes and seasoned business elite.

My first confession is this: No matter how much success you have in this business, you still never ever know 100% how something is really going to do. You get gut feelings, which are often correct. You fight with marketers to save them from themselves, many don’t listen and wind up blowing a fortune and then blaming you when no one calls! One recent marketer dictated every frame of every shot, dictated the offer, the product attributes, even came to the casting session. We cautioned against alot of what they did and they pushed, pushed, pushed.  They virtually ignored our suggestions and ideas. Well, the call volume was not stupendous. I suggested doing some consumer research and have consumers view the spot and ask them clarifying questions. We put the questions together and the results were very telling. And quite illuminating for the marketer as many nuances were raised that they were not aware of. We were very excited because we would have the opportunity to tweak the infomercial with the benefit of this new knowledge and research which made us confident that we could increase the call volume and bring success to the client. So, what occured? The marketer hired a different company to produce the infomercial, using all the new research and strategy. Of course they got more calls. That was a no brainer.  It was kind of like giving birth to a baby and letting someone else raise it. That was sure no fun, but I learned alot from that experience.

But the bottom line is that no one ever knows how a customer is going to react to a positioning, a strategy, a creative execution, an offer, a promise, a new category until it is viewed at home by the consumer. You can test and plan and think you know all the answers. And you never really do. No one does.  Not the marketer. Not the producer. Not the celebrity. Not anyone. That is one of the reasons why I love this business so much.  It’s kind of like a tennis match. You and the consumer are playing. You can score all aces one day and can’t hit one over the next. Kind of like riding a horse. Some days the horse just bucks you off and you don’t know why. But you get back on, and you try even harder the next time.

My second confession is this: I care so much about my client’s success that it affects me through and through to the core.  When I get the many great emails and phone calls about the raging success of their campaigns, it fills me with a sense of happiness that I can not describe. It is fulfilling and wonderful. Conversely, on those few campaigns that don’t work out well, I feel awful.  Like I failed them. And I do everything humanly possible to figure out why and if there is something that can be done to shake that  consumer out of their apathy to want the product or service enough to respond to a web site or a phone number.

You might find it odd that an infomercial expert would confess these things, but isn’t that what blogs were originally for? To write about the things that we are passionate about? And I am sure passionate about bringing great solutions to the public, one product at a time.  For I don’t see it as selling, I see it as helping and enlightening.  Of course it helps that I don’t work on junks or cheap gadgets, but on products that I can believe in.  And people that I can believe in.  And I feel very blessed that there are some fantastic marketers that believe in me. And that makes it all worth while.

DRTV 3.0

Happy New Year to DRTV! DRTV 3.0 is upon us. Gone are the days when we do a commercial for one product and one phone number comes up. Things were oh so simple in the days of DRTV 2.0 when all we needed to worry about was a product, telemarketing and fulfillment.

DRTV 3.0 is far more complex and allows us to promote a product or service through multiple channels. That is a blessing and a curse. A blessing because we can get the word out to many different groups of people, a curse because we can not always accurately measure and analyze all the different levels of outreach with the same exacting science as we could in 1.0.

Avalanche has engaged in an exciting digital exploration where we are trying new ways to sell products and services for our clients through new ways to use video assets online and through mobile outreach.  There is lots to read about digital, but most of it is about branding, very little about ROI tactics.

It’s great to like me on Facebook, but how does that translate to sales.  How cute that you have an app, now how many new customers did it bring you?

I am hoping that 2012 will bring to the DRTV space a new age  in digital where we can create trackable, accountable digital outreach which will inspire leads and sales and supplement (in some cases even replace) the marketing we are doing for our clients on TV.

One of my favorite quotes is by Picasso. He says, “It takes one a long time to become young.” That is how this old DRTV gal feels about digital. I am becoming young again and in doing so, learning how to make our clients more money, more profitably, quicker than ever before.  Our creativity and our passion is still there, no matter what medium or format that we work in. The artistry, vivid colors and imaginative communication is all still there, but oh you can teach an old DRTV dog new tricks.

So, out with the old DRTV 2.0 and in with the new DRTV 3.o. Happy New Year to All!

Welcome to the NEW Avalanche blog!

Avalanche is heading into the New Year with a new digital division and a new perspective and drive for successful DRTV infomercials. Not to mention a BRAND NEW blog!

We have done a lot in 2011 such as create our very own FREE Avalanche iPhone App and start a whole new Digital Division. And now we are excited to introduce you to our new blog page which will be better integrated into our website and be more interactive a user-friendly! So we are excited and we hope you will be joining us by posting comments and starting a dialogue with us about your opinions, because you matter to us!