Douglas M. Gaus
www.newproductconsultant.com

Yesterday's devastating Atlantic storm, a.k.a. Hurricane Sandy, caused the sinking of the HMS Bounty, a ship originally made for the 1962 movie "Mutiny on the Bounty"...Sadly, its sinking caused the probable passing of two of its crew members, who were not able to be rescued when they were forced to abandon ship.  The huge vessel had been sent south last week to try to beat the storm around the Florida cape...

The untimely sinking reminded me of the late infomercial king, Billy Mays, whom had shot a Mighty Putty Wood commercial, using the same ship as his infomercial "wow" prop.  The 500 ton ship was being pulled by a cable held together with two oars bonded with the product and featuring Billy hanging from the front of the ship, doing his sales spiel (see deleted takes above).   Billy passed away a little over three years ago, and at the time, there was a lot of talk about who would or could replace him as "the" pitchman for infomercial spots.

His Pitchmen tv series partner, Anthony "Sully" Sullivan, has done a fair amount of infomercials since Billy's passing.  Sully can now be seen as the main pitchman for Telebrands, Mighty Putty and the line of Oxiclean products (Church and Dwight). 

But even though Sully can be seen on your screen pitching the above products every now and then, I don't think he has filled the void left in the entire infomercial arena, by Billy Mays' passing.  There are a few no name pitchers on some running ads, and a few old pitcher "retreads", but none have risen above the fray to become a dominant force.

Anyone disagree?  I'd love to hear who you think is the resident infomercial king (or queen)...Or maybe who you think could be the replacement, if giving the pitching opportunity...


Also read my original blog post on the late Billy Mays (below) "Life's a Pitch" - July 2, 2009

http://www.newproductconsultant.com/1/post/2009/07/lifes-a-pitch.html

     

  

I just saw that Staples is carrying some great new lines of Avery labels that are catered for branding and merchandising products...they feature the ability to print right to the edge and most are inkjet and LaserJet compatible...For branding use, there are new square, round and arched shape labels...and for merchandising, there are printable tags with string, shelf tags and bag toppers (with plastic bags to go with)...the arched labels can be used on bottles (wine, lotion or liquid containers), as well as paper or even plastic bags.  I also saw some nice glossy embossed silver and gold labels, but because of the specialty paper utilized are LaserJet printer compatible-only.

Avery is targeting these products to small business owners, along with people who sell their wares at smaller venues like festivals and fairs, possibly even for booths at larger sales conventions...but if you're an inventor like me, you can even use these labels to create professional looking package mock-ups (SWAG) for your invention for presenting to companies for possible licensing.  The farther down the line you can present your product idea to someone, showing possible look and size of packaging of your new product, the more of a chance they will "get it".

If you're going to market with a product, you'll obviously pay much more per individual label by using the Avery labels versus going to a company that prints labels for longer runs.  Those companies will provide you with a much lower cost per label, but with the offset of requiring much higher minimum orders requiring significant cash outlay...which many times small business start-ups don't have.  It depends where you're at, but investing in 2000 labels may mean you have 20 times more labels than hard product to sell to the public.

Many times it could be better for a small business starting to sell a new product to spend sparse capital on a good graphic designer to design the best packaging...than to spend the money on producing higher quality labels. It’s more important to work on getting the packaging art work to match your product the best...and at the same time be the most impulsive to pick up and review for potential customers.  When the time comes that your product sales reach critical mass (you'll know when because you are having a hard time fulfilling purchase orders), then move to contract out your labels to a label printing company...this will bring the cost of packaging down (and your overall cost per unit) when you earned the right to say there is a proven market for your product.

I give Avery some credit for coming out with some new innovative products for small businesses...they have had to weather the last ten to fifteen years of the big office supply companies gaining market share of the label market by providing knock-off Avery products sold under the Staples, Office Depot or OfficeMax brand name.   I think Avery is hopeful that it will be harder and take longer for the office supply companies to outsource these more specialized new product offerings.  The big office supply companies have become dependent on selling knock-offs of reputable brands at a lower price to their customer (usually along with slightly inferior quality).

Regardless, Avery is doing a good job providing some inexpensive products to allow small business customers to use their own computers, printers and design capabilities to do their own thing in-house.  Their lines of products can be used by large and medium sized businesses (specialized employee products for catered type events), all the way down to your brother-in-law who just made a new home brewed batch of I.P.A.'s and wants labels for them when he brings them to Thanksgiving to give to unsuspecting relatives to test out for drinkability...

Check out the new Avery products for yourself at their website:

http://www.avery.com/avery/en_us/Products/Avery-Customizable-Marketing-Solutions-Main-Page.htm