Description: Digital calorie tracker
Main Pitch: "Automatically calculates how much you should eat to lose weight" and "tracks the food you eat"
Main Offer: $19.99 for one unit with full-size and wallet-size calorie guides
Bonus: Second unit with calorie guides free (just pay separate S&H)
Starring: Jason Williams
Marketer: Colorado Fitness Concepts
Producer: Unknown
Website: www.CalPal.com
Product (D7) Score: 5 out of 7
Commercial Rating: Good
The biggest problem I see with this product is it's far from unique. There are dozens of different calorie counters on the market, and they come in all shapes, sizes and price points. The commercial claims other solutions are bulky, but I easily found a bunch of small ones, including this cool, bullet-shaped counter that's cheaper and has more features.
Another problem is the market this is targeting: calorie counters. That may not be a big enough market to sustain a DRTV campaign. Sure, the diet market is huge, but there are easily as many carb counters as calorie counters these days. Dieters also like to keep track of their fat intake, but this item won't help them with that. This matters because the competition's products track all of these things.
As for the commercial, it's upbeat and motivating. So many DRTV commercials feel slow and boring these days, that I have to give the producer credit for this. The commercial also makes all the right claims (although many seem way overblown, given what this is) and features all the right images.
My only criticism is that it doesn't open with a clear problem-solution. This would have been easy enough to do, since the right scenes are shown later. Moreover, I believe it's necessary to immediately answer a strong objection that will pop into the viewer's mind: Why would I buy this product when I can just use one of those online counters for free?
