Jessica Malnik

Now if you occasionally find yourself wide awake at 2 a.m, like me, you know that there are very few things you can do at that hour (the joys of insomnia). The most common thing is turning on the television. That leaves you with essentially two options: Nick at Nite reruns and the late-night infomercials. Now, I can only watch so many Friends and The Nanny reruns. So, I tune into one of the ridiculous infomercials. And, it got me thinking. Sometimes even the most boring, guaranteed to put an insomniac to sleep informercials can do wonders to make a product stand out. From ninja swords to Snuggies, here’s a few casual insights from a very sleep-deprived marketer.

1. Make sure you fill a need- as ridiculous as it may be. 

The secret to a good infomercial product is that it must fill a need for your target audience. Now, this need could be as mundane as finding a better way to chop onions. But in some other cases, marketers are going to have to get creative. Take “Easy Feet” for example. Now, I’m pretty sure everyone, I think, wants to have squeaky clean feet. Most people just use a washcloth. I’m not sure how many people would automatically go out and buy what I can only describe as the world’s most awkward car wash for feet before this infomercial debuted.

2. Cater to people’s laziness. 

It never ceases to amaze me just how lazy we can be. Only in America would we have inventions like the Snuggie. The Snuggie is a ridiculous looking wearable blanket. Yet, it may be one of the most well-known infomercials out there. They have sold millions of them.

3. Make sure your product can be parodied.  

Youtube. It can be the best way to get a late night infomercial tons of exposure. There’s only so many people, who are going to stay up and watch the Forever Lazy infomercial (a spin-off of the Snuggie) at 2 a.m. But, put it on Youtube. You are bound to get dozens and dozens of parodies and spin-offs. Many of them are very funny, and a lot of them are NSFW.

4. Go for the WTF Factor.

If all else fails, go for the WTF factor. Make sure that your product is either so absurd or can be used for such an absurd task that it becomes memorable. Take “furniture fix,” which is supposed to fix sagging couches.  To illustrate their point, they showed two SUMO wrestlers — weighing more than 1,000 pounds– sitting on the couch. Yeah, just a little bit extreme right?

So, let’s have a little fun now. What’s the worst infomercial you have seen? Share in the comments section below.

Let me preface by saying that I like QR Codes. I think they can bring something new to the table and offer a lot of value. That being said, it only offers a lot of value to specific, niche audiences. Many marketers today are treating QR Codes in similar ways to how we treated social media in 2007-08. It’s that semi-new shiny object that marketers are so enamored with that they are using it all the time without thinking it through. The biggest problem is that marketers are forgetting that their target audience is mobile and going from one place to the next. They likely aren’t sitting on their asses in front of a 24” desktop computer. They are likely walking, shopping, riding/waiting for a bus or a train, or even driving a car. You need to find a way to get their attention in a matter of seconds, and get them to stop what they are doing momentarily and scan the code on their phone. 

This is at a minimal a three-step process.

• 1. First, you need to come up with a way to get their attention.
• 2. Then, you need to drive them to scan the code.
• 3. Finally, you have to keep it simple and engaging enough to get them to do your desired goal or outcome. Every additional second you waste or step you take, you are losing people.

We see evidence of this misstep all the time. PR professional and blogger Arik Hanson wrote a great post a few days ago about his QR Code experiment at the Mall of America. One of the overarching points in his post was the lack of incentive for people to scan the code. And, the fact that the QR code was unnecessarily complicated and required too many steps.

One of the biggest (and sadly most common ways) they are losing people is that the QR code is going to a non-mobile friendly landing page. If you are scanning a code on a phone on the go, you better make damn sure the landing page is optimized for that phone. (For all things holy, please make sure it’s optimized for phones and NOT just tablets. I don’t know about you but there are very few people in this world, who walk around holding their ipads while walking, shopping, etc, just waiting to scan a QR Code). This is where responsive design comes into play. Don’t know what that is- take a look at what Austin-based mobile marketer Tim Hayden is doing. Just brilliant stuff.

Another related misstep is not thinking about the mobile environment where your audience is. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen QR Codes in the NYC subway trains. The obvious problem is there is no flipping Internet underground. So, that already renders scanning the code pretty much useless. Even when the train is above ground in parts of the boroughs, the subway train environment isn’t conducive to QR Code scanning. I can tell you from personal experience that the last thing I’m going to want to do while I’m holding onto a subway pole, inevitably sandwiched between two fatties, who likely have serious cases of BO, is hold my phone up above my head to scan a QR Code.

Another terrible choice is to put a QR Code on a highway billboard. First, it’s downright irresponsible. Second, the last thing I’m going to do is hold up my phone with one hand and drive the car at 70+mph with the other hand. I’m likely not even going to catch the code, because I’m going too fast. Or, it’s very likely I’m going to crash my car or drive off the side of the road. Just not smart.

It’s just not going to happen in these two scenarios. Marketers, who start thinking about the what-ifs (including if the passenger in the car scans the code), are somewhat delusional and should focus their energy on better places to put QR Codes.  Don’t know where that is? Here’s a few suggestions.

1. Shopping Mall Signs

2. Bus stop shelter posters/signs

3. Smart boards and other digital billboards

4. Parties, tweet-ups and other local events

5. Even in a TV commercial (Caveat, it must be on long enough and fully integrated in the commercial. There’s a lot of ways this can backfire.)

These are all places where you will be the most likely to have a receptive audience. They are either shopping, looking at something while sitting, standing or walking, watching something on TV or waiting for a bus. There’s plenty of other good places. Just think about where your audience is most likely to be receptive to your message and then design and execute your QR Code campaign there. That’s the best way to set yourself up for success.