Ideas for Products are 'Out There, Everywhere, in Abundant Supply'
In his 1995 autobiography, Ron Popeil revealed his process for finding hit products
I write a lot about marketing, so in today’s newsletter I’m going to cover something equally important and upstream of marketing: new products. Sure enough, the old Masters of Marketing had a lot to say about this as well. For example…
Old Gold🪙
Ron Popeil, the salesman of the (last) century, was known for coming up with hit product after hit product. His Showtime Rotisserie alone — for which he coined the phrase “Set it, and forget it!” — sold more than eight million units, “helping Ronco’s housewares sales exceed $1 billion in sales,” according to Wikipedia. That’s back when a billion dollars was a lot of money! 😉
In his 1995 autobiography, Popeil revealed his process for finding these hit products. Here’s some of what he wrote:
A new product could be as simple as your own invention or simply a repackaging and updating of an old concept. Ideas for your future products are out there, everywhere, in abundant supply. It’s just a matter of looking for them.
How do I do it? I look for problems to solve in the home, automobile, and personal-care categories—areas where the consumer can relate to the problems that he or she encounters on a frequent basis. The next thing I do is my homework. I look into what is already in the U.S. and foreign marketplace. The product you may be looking for may exist overseas but has never come to the U.S…There are also products out there that have never been marketed that may solve the problem you’re trying to solve. You must really educate yourself about what’s out there in association with the problem…
I buy lots of products—everything related to the product I’m attempting to invent or innovate. After I’ve done my research, I’m ready to sit down with my development team and review what’s been done, how we can take advantage of it, and what we can do to create the better mousetrap.
There are quite a few things worth commenting on here, but I want to highlight just one: the idea that coming up with a new product is “as simple as” developing “your own invention.” This is one of the most persistent misconceptions among people from outside the DR industry. They think we sell “inventions.” In reality, the second method Popeil mentions, “repackaging and updating,” is much more common — with “repackaging” being a euphemism for “copying someone else’s ideas.”
Of course, it’s true that back in Popeil’s day he invented products and also worked with inventors who had novel ideas. We don’t call it the “Golden Age” for nothing! However, that sort of thing became less and less common as time went on. In fact, if you read between the lines carefully, you can already see it by 1995. “I buy lots of products,” Popeil confesses, “everything related to the product I’m attempting to invent or innovate.” That last word is another one of those euphemisms I mentioned earlier. My favorite variation is the phrase “inspiration product,” as in: “I am inspired to copy this company’s best-selling product … Now, let’s get that patent check going.”
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not trying to shame anyone. There is no shame in this game. Almost every product on the market, and even most “inventions” I have seen, are really just twists on an old product idea. True originality is like a unicorn.
More to the point, there is so much time and cost involved in bringing a product to market from scratch — only to face truly terrible odds of success and then get knocked off yourself — that the nostalgic old way is a really good way to lose your shirt. It’s much wiser to take something you already know will sell and try to improve upon it. You might even get really creative and take two things you know will sell and then combine them in some clever, new way. Such approaches will speed up the process, reduce costs and improve your odds significantly.
Choose products with better odds of success.
Create commercials that sell.
Use direct-response metrics to make more money.
SciMark can help you accomplish these vital tasks.
Email me to find out more.
Chart Watch👁️
A BulbHead campaign that broke into the top 10 this spring is currently sitting at #2 on the DRMetrix weekly rankings, which means I’m long past due in informing you about it!
Ruby Horse Power
Pitch: “Rechargeable power scrubber…cleans faster and easier, guaranteed”
Offer: $39.99 for one with 5 free attachments
Brand: Ruby
Marketer: BulbHead
This commercial first tested back in February of this year. It’s the eighth attempt under the Ruby brand, and the fourth rollout. The others are: Ruby Sliders (#14 on the 2022 True Top 50), Ruby Space Triangles (#10 on the 2023 True Top 50) and Ruby Monkey Magnets.
This marketer has done a lot with scrubbers over the years. Related items include: Clean Police Sani Scrubber, Hurricane Spin Scrubber, Hurricane Muscle Scrubber and Hurricane Sani-Spin.
There are two things of particular note here. First, this commercial has a huge offer that has to start before even the halfway mark. It’s essentially a 60 (see above) followed by a second 60 that is all offer and end tag. That’s how long it takes to introduce and demonstrate the scouring sponge, the stainless steel brush, the cone brush and the microfiber cloth plus invite people to “find out about” an upsell (the “E-Z Reach bottle brush”).
Second, the commercial ends with a new variation of a classic closer that’s designed to create a sense of urgency:
Great news! Horse Power is now in stock and ready to ship. But due to high demand, there is a strict limit of two per order.
Few marketers experiment with their advertising as much as BulbHead does, so it’s always wise to pay attention to what they’re doing. The odds are good that their techniques are being used because they work, and those techniques can be applied to all types of marketing.
(Note: The links above will only work if you have access to The Library of DRTV, my online archive of DRTV projects going back to 2007. Want in? Simply upgrade to paid using the button below. It’s just $5.99 per month or $59 for the year — an 18% savings!)
Fun Fact🧠
OK, this one isn’t very fun…
“Every major [TV] provider is reporting negative numbers, not just cable and satellite. Even digital TV streaming is shrinking.” - Ted Gioia, The Honest Broker
Gioia shares two telling statistics to back up this claim:
Cable TV subscriptions are down a whopping 27% since 2016
In Q1 of this year, YouTube TV and Google’s streaming TV service each lost 150,000 subscribers
So what’s displacing TV? His answer probably won’t surprise you: It’s “addictive scrolling on phones.”
For more on this trend, check out Gioia’s feature-length article about the “State of the Culture” in 2024. It begins: “I want to tell you why entertainment is dead. And what’s coming to take its place.” So strap in!
