Weekly Round-Up

1. Dot-To-Dot. Brand: Colorama. Marketer: Telebrands. Pitch: "Over 100 challenging connect-the-dot puzzles designed for adults." Comments: At the risk of coming across as absurd, I'm going to argue that this makes less sense than its predecessor did. It seems to me that Colorama is about being artistic whereas this is pitched as an alternative to crossword puzzles, a different target market. It's also worth noting that at press time, an adult coloring book was No. 6 on Amazon's Top 100 books list while the highest ranked adult connect-the-dots books were in the 16,000s. On a separate note, it will be interesting to see how many of these 'kid books for adults' Telebrands and its competitors will try. This is Telebrands' third (here's their second.) The most alluring Siren categories always start with a hit (see lanterns). [ss]
 
2. Amish Cleaning Tonic. Brand: Dutch Glow. Marketer: SAS Group. Pitch: "Powerful, non-toxic all natural kitchen cleaner." Comments: This is another attempt at line extending Dutch Glow, a 2014 True Top Spender that Telebrands followed with Amish Secret (also a TTS). This product's full name is a mouthful -- it's "Dutch Glow Amish Cleaning Tonic"-- but I guess that was to help prevent immediate competition from Amish Secret Cleaning Tonic. [ss]
 
3. Big Show. Marketer: Telebrands. Pitch: "The incredible magnifying screen that triples your cell phone screen size." Comments: I'm guessing this one failed. The demographics are all wrong, and (largely as a result) phone accessories is a terrible DRTV category. [ss]
 
4. Colorama Cats & Kittens. Brand: Colorama. Marketer: Telebrands. Pitch: "The purrfect way to melt your stress away." Comments: That didn't take long! No. 4 and counting ... The positive: It's really just another volume of the same kind of book that's already a big hit. The negative: It segments the segment. [ss]
 
5. Gotham Steel Knives. Starring: Chef Daniel Green. Marketer: Emson. Pitch: "The sharpest, most precise knife set you'll ever own." Comments: This comes on the heels of Gotham Steel cookware, which is by the same marketer. I suppose that's one way to create a brand: Launch multiple items with the same name at once. On the other hand, this Web site is already down, so maybe that isn't the way to do it. [ss]
 
6. Mighty Shears. Marketer: Spark Innovators. Pitch: "The only scissor tool that you'll ever need." Comments: This one would be a great example for the part of my workshop where I talked about "Swiss Army" products. The key problem is fitting 10 pounds of pitch in a five-pound bag. Not only does the product do multiple things, it is multiple things. Even worse, the base product has been tried before: IdeaVillage and Chef Tony failed with it back in 2008 under the name Super Shears (see No. 10 in this post). [ss]
 
7. Perfect Bake. Pitch: "A patented smart scale and downloadable app that makes baking easy and fast." Comments: You lost them at baking scale ... and downloadable app. [ss]
 
8. Pillow Active. Pitch: "The world's first cold and flu pillowcase." Comments: Credibility is still an important element of a good DRTV pitch, and it is sorely lacking here. [ss]
 
9. Trash Tidy. Pitch: "Quickly replace trash bags in seconds." Comments: A classic solution in search of a problem. Watch the opening of the spot also to see two examples of what I call a "contrived problem." [ss]
 
10. Wiser Visor. Marketer: Telebrands. Pitch: "The hands-free visor clip that holds your phone at eye level, so you never have to take your eyes off the road." Comments: It's probably too soon after Allstar's GripGo and Emson's Clever Grip, which is still on the market, for a similar product to be successful. Then again, I said the same thing about Clever Grip when it came out. [ss]