Business With Style

If you’ve ever turned on the tube late at night and tried to find something to lull you back to sleep, chances are you’ve encountered an infomercial. Infomercials are ubiquitous and are notorious for playing on their viewers’ late night judgment, which is often impaired owing to insomnia, sleep deprivation, or any of its causes – depression, anxiety, etc. Consequently, they are often designed to play to peoples’ insecurities – their weight or poor complexion – or else their weakened judgment in discerning just how necessary another ultra absorbent chamois really is.

Lately, however, that’s begun to change. More and more aptly-named “TV entrepreneurs” are hitting cable with products that don’t play on insecurities but rather mimic a real TV format. This new generation of infomercials employs what are more quickly becoming the new standard in infomercial production techniques. Whereas infomercials have historically employed so-called “real studio audiences” or D-list celebrities espousing the merits of a product, infomercials are now often designed to mimic the appearance of a real, late night TV show or good housekeeping show, or even a shopping network’s real regular programming. The result is an increasingly predatory programming lineup in which unsuspecting consumers are the targets of massive misrepresentation.

Thankfully, more reputable infomercial production companies are refusing to stoop to these new, deceiving lows in sales. This is in part because producers consider the new techniques to be deceptive, and therefore unethical. But the main reason some infomercial companies refuse to partake in the new deception scheme is that most have found that, in the long run, products that employ deceptive marketing never succeed on the scale of their more legitimately marketed counterparts, even if they are good products. This is mostly due to the fact that there is a much smaller demographic that shops from TV shopping networks than the segment that will buy something based on a 30-second spot or one of its longer counterparts. 

So if you’re in the exciting position of having to decide how to market your new product on TV, consider going to one of the best infomercial production people so that you’ll be dealing with someone who has the long-term success of your product in mind. You’ll be glad that you did, and – who knows – you may be lucky enough to be maker of the Next Big Thing. Oxyclean, anyone?