Description: A personal panic button
Main Pitch: "With the simple push of the red hand button, you will instantly talk to a 911 operator anywhere, any time"
Main Offer: $39.99 for one
Bonus: Belt clip, lanyard
Marketer: Telebrands
Watch the spot
"I've fallen, and I can't get up!" That phrase, which comes from a late-80s Life Call/Life Alert commercial, is one of the most well known in TV history. Calling the item Old Gold would be a huge understatement. It's at least Old Platinum. Now Telebrands not only wants to resurrect the idea, but it wants to do it by trashing the original concept ... I like it.
To clarify, I like it from a marketing standpoint. I have no idea if the project is actually executable. About that I have my doubts. There are also liability concerns. For one thing, the QC better be excellent. "Send it back for a full refund of the purchase price" isn't going to cut it here. I also wonder whether making it so easy to contact emergency services is a good idea. But these concerns are beyond my area of expertise.
S7 Analysis: Going down the checklist, the only place I paused was the targeted criterion. This commercial features a middle-age cyclist, but that's far-fetched. Watching the original Life Alert commercials, it's clear who the target customer is: Older seniors who use canes and walkers. That makes me wonder if the product is too senior to sustain a campaign without the ongoing subscription revenue that supported the original business.
