Infomercials Win Respect As Mainstream Marketing Tool Half-Hour Ads Used To Sell Everything From Exercise Equipment To Salvation
It’s 6 a.m., life’s twilight hour, when suffering insomniacs begin sharing the world with eager early risers, and on television a man named Covert Bailey is selling an exercise machine called the Health Rider; Casey Kasem, the top-40 disc jockey, is selling Tony Robbins’ personal-improvement tapes; Cathy Rigby, the once-famous gymnast, is selling another exercise machine known as Fast Track; and Benny Hinn and Oral Roberts are teamed up to sell healing miracles.
Actually, they’re all selling miracles.
Bailey (for $499) and Rigby (for $300) promise to flatten out your stomach and have you in tip-top shape with 30 minutes or less of daily exercise. And the Robbins motivational tapes pledge to guide you to a more satisfying, productive life for a mere $180.
Bailey, Rigby and Robbins are all part of the burgeoning industry of infomercials, those half-hour ads that explain how every hair can be in place, every extra pound taken off and every relationship lived happily ever after.
It may be easy for non-watchers to smirk, but infomercials, which by industry estimates attract $1 billion a year in product sales - more than Macy’s on New York’s 34th Street - are a marketing device moving quickly from the back alleys of advertising to a respectable bench on the front porch. Even such large, prestigious companies as Apple Computer, Magnavox, Toyota USA, and McDonald’s have been attracted to infomercials. And there’s already evidence that some of the 1996 presidential campaign will be waged with them.
Which isn’t to say that the infomercial has overcome fully its reputation for selling modern-day patent medicines. There still are reasons to be skeptical, especially of those that promise a few easy steps to making a million dollars, or a simple, anybodycan-do-it diet regimen that will give you the body you’ve always wanted.
In the last four years, the Federal Trade Commission has brought more than 30 actions against infomercials and settled for millions of dollars with a total of 75 individuals and corporations charged with making false claims.
But overall, said Lesley Fair, an attorney with the FTC’s division of advertising practices, the infomercial industry seems to be moving out of the “wild West atmosphere and has shown real improvement.”
“There is a shakeout happening. It’s Darwinian,” said Jon Schulberg, president of Schulberg MediaWorks, a major infomercial producer based in San Francisco. “The old-school players will be purged; it’s a bigger business that will require more sophisticated practices.”
In truth, it’s pretty sophisticated now.
About 150 infomercials appear more or less regularly, and the most successful can reap astonishing profits.
Barbara De Angelis, for example, released her infomercial in December 1993, selling a set of five audio tapes and two video cassettes and promising to help buyers improve their personal relationships.
Better-written than most, De Angelis’ infomercial, called “Making Love Work,” cost about $1 million to produce, test and get to market. The set sells for about $80 (four payments of $19.95 each) and is on the verge of grossing $40 million, said Schulberg, who helped write and produce the commercial.
Not bad, but still well behind some other big winners. Tony Robbins, for instance, has grossed more than $150 million since 1989 with his tapes on overcoming fear, improving relationships and making money, according to Greg Renker of Guthy-Renker, Robbins’ infomercial company.
Another Guthy-Renker star, actress Victoria Principal, has sold close to $100 million worth of skincare products since 1991. Principal, by all accounts, actually helped develop some of the creams.
The Crosswalk treadmill’s infomercials, from Tyee Productions of Portland, reaped $100 million in nine months, according to Tim O’Leary, president of Tyee’s TV division.
De Angelis, who had written bestselling books before the infomercial, said in a telephone interview that she had resisted earlier suggestions for an infomercial because the “people doing them were schlocky.” By 1993, she said, “they gave me control, and I decided to do it.”
The rest, as they say, is infomercial lore. It is built around a De Angelis lecture, narrated by Sally Kellerman, and includes a number of warm testimonials, including one from Bill Pearson, a Vietnam War veteran who presents De Angelis with his Purple Heart for helping him finally “come home.”
Of course, not all infomercials do so well. For every money-maker, there are 10 or more losers, the industry estimates. Most notable, perhaps, were highly expensive cosmetics productions by Dolly Parton and Joan Collins that went nowhere.