Description: A clip-on colander
Main Pitch: "Simply clip onto any pot or pan and strain"
Main Offer: $10 for one
Bonus: 2nd one plus Hop Chopper (just pay a separate fee)
Marketer: Telebrands (2015 True Top Marketer)
Producer: Sullivan
Watch the spot
If you think today's multi-way duels are uniquely crazy, you weren't around in 2003. That's the year every DRTV marketer came out with a pasta pot to compete with Merchant Media's Pasta Pro. Telebrands had the Better Pasta Pot, Tristar had the Pasta Pot Express and Emson had the InstaPasta Pot. So, like everyone else who was around at that time, I've had a keen interest in every pasta strainer I've seen since then.
A few subsequent successes validated that feeling. There was Tristar's Pasta Express in 2006, and Telebrands' Pasta Boat in 2010. The trouble is, there have also been many failures. Recently, they have come in similar form to this product. For example, SAS tried twice in 2013 with a close cousin (see Better Strainer).
S7 Analysis: It's hard to find any S7 flaws in the sort of concept that once lured four marketers into a feeding frenzy. The open question is whether such solutions still come across as different enough. Back in the Pasta Pro days, combining a colander and a pot was a breakthrough idea -- simple yet brilliant. But like many ideas from the Golden Age, it may not seem as brilliant to consumers today.
