A Mythical Toilet Creature is Climbing the Charts
Will I have to reconsider one of my favorite aphorisms?
There isn’t much to talk about this week, so I’m going to (mostly) re-post a writeup I did in January about a new BulbHead project that is now in rollout. If you’re a premium subscriber, you knew all about this project four weeks ago — well ahead of everyone else in the industry.
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Now, let’s take this conversation into the toilet…
Campaign: Mer-Maid
Pitch: “Automatically cleans, deodorizes and freshens every time you flush”
Marketer: BulbHead
As mentioned above, this project first tested in Week 4 and is now #29 on the DRMetrix report.1 For those keeping track at home, BulbHead has been on a serious run. About this time last month, I reported that the marketer suddenly had four campaigns in the Top 20 (“BulbHead Starts the Year with a Bang”). All four of those campaigns are still on the DRMetrix at press time with Ruby Space Triangles in the highest position at #9 and Lizard Flare still going strong at #24. (Anecdotally, the latter is the one DRTV product people bring up most often these days when they learn what I do.)
Still, I have some reservations about this new campaign. One of my Aphorisms of DRTV™2 is that “s**t solutions don’t sell.” I came up with the saying in reference to plungers and pooper scoopers, but TBH I would also have applied it to this category. A big part of that is the inevitable demos in these commercials. They aren’t what I’d call “visually appealing.”
If this campaign remains in the Top 50, however, I will have to reconsider my aphorism. Taking a look at the category history, this is not the first automatic toilet cleaner that has been attempted. Believe it or not, it isn’t even the first one in the form of a blue creature. That honor goes to the Little Blue Elephant, a forgotten test from 2012.
Speaking of 2012, that was the year of an earlier Telebrands foray into this category called Toilet Bullet. Other attempts around that time include Allstar’s Tidy Toilet. More recently, in 2022, SAS tested Fuller Toilet Pods. None of those seems to have gone very far.
About the only bright spot is Ontel’s HurriClean, which I recall had a decent run in 2016-2017 but did not make my True Top 50 for either year.
COMING SOON: I’m almost ready to release the 2022 True Top 50 and announce the True Top Marketer and True Top Producer for last year. Can’t you just feel the excitement? It could be as soon as next week! Don’t miss out.3
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Recent Tests: None this week (but if there were, you’d be the first to know!)👍
Promising Products: Drink water, clean your pores & express your love
N.B. - In case you were wondering, the artwork for today’s article is courtesy of Craiyon, the AI image generator formerly known as “DALL-E mini.” This was its most interesting concept for “a mythical toilet creature.”
“Weekly Spend Index Report for ASONTV Brands,” Week 8, 02/13/2023 thru 02/19/2023
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Both free & premium subscribers will receive the complete True Top 50 report, but only the paying subscribers will feel good about themselves for supporting my work. Just sayin’.