Imbue Your Products With This Quality & All Other Criteria Might Not Matter
Products that violated my D7 criteria almost always failed — unless they had this
Now that I’ve finished explaining and updating my Divine Seven (D7) product criteria, I should probably tell you that at some point I came to realize there were actually eight criteria, not seven. Since that would mess up my clever name, however, I couldn’t bring myself to make the change. Instead, I would just tack it on at the end of presentations as my ‘but wait, there’s more!’ bonus item.
That might seem silly, but at least I’m in good company! The godfather of persuasion, the Great Cialdini, introduced six principles of persuasion in his seminal 1984 book, Influence. Then, in 2016, he came out with a new book (Pre-suasion) and added a seventh principle, the one ring to rule them all.
My eighth criterion is something like that. Some in the industry call it “demonstrability.” Others call it “visual appeal.” But it was the name my first boss in the business gave it that eventually stuck with me: wow factor.
Thinking about wow factor ultimately helped me solve a mystery. Although I never claimed a product needed to meet all seven of my criteria, I had noticed that more than a few flagrantly violated several of my criteria and still succeeded. An item from 2007 called Fushigi is a prime example. Here’s the spot:
A shiny ball that appears to defy gravity is certainly unique, but it’s not very mass market. I mean, how many people are truly interested in learning to do these kinds of tricks? There’s certainly not one in every household. Moreover, what problem does a levitating ball solve? Is it easy to explain how it works? (Did you understand it?) I can go on. The commercial claims the product is appropriate for “young or old, big or small,” but is that really true? And is it really credible to claim anyone can do these tricks “from the minute they pick up” the product?
These are mostly rhetorical questions. Fushigi clearly violates almost all of the D7 criteria. As I wrote in my original 2010 review:
Can a product that’s all “magic demo” and no problem/solution succeed on DRTV? I don't think so. Even if the target is kids, I have serious doubts.
The Website explains the product is actually “a form of contact juggling where the operator exploits the reflective properties of a sphere through specific hand and body isolations and movements that are designed to give the appearance that the ... sphere is moving on its own or even floating”…
That sounds way too complicated for adults, let alone kids, and it also seems like it would require a lot of practice.
And yet: Fushigi was a big success in its day, rocketing to #3 in the country in the fall of 2010 and then ending the year at #13 overall. The explanation? Wow factor. It was so cool and unusual, people just had to have it. I would even argue that, just like Mister Nizz knew the nuclear submarine for kids couldn’t be real, most people knew in advance they were going to fail at making this shiny ball float through the air. They didn’t care. They just had to give it a try because — imagine how cool you’d look if you pulled it off! Wow factor overrides all logic and reason.
This is an important insight, and it doesn’t just apply to products that break all the rules. Imagine what a little wow factor could do for an item that met most or all of the D7 criteria? Indeed, this wildcard quality may explain outlier successes in categories that tend to produce nothing but mediocre results. Two examples from industry history spring to mind: cleaning products and lights.
Cleaning products are interesting because the category started off with a bang, producing what is arguably the biggest success in DRTV history: OxiClean. I say that because only a handful of ‘As Seen on TV’ products have ever done so well that they were acquired for millions of dollars ($325 million in this case). Moreover, while these few products almost always failed to pay off for the acquiring company, Church & Dwight continues to sell OxiClean to this day.
And yet: Many subsequent attempts to repeat the trick failed. So many failed, in fact, that DR marketers eventually stopped trying and declared cleaning products a bad category. Some of this is explained by timing, some by the sheer number of cleaning products that became available at retail. But I also think it was really hard to re-capture the incredible level of wow factor with which the late, great Billy Mays imbued the product. See for yourself:
{Note to paying subscribers: Get out your notebook and head over to The Library of DRTV. I’ve re-posted the 30-minute infomercial version of Billy’s OxiClean pitch for your enjoyment and education. Learn “wow factor” from a true master of the craft. Not yet a subscriber? Don’t delay! Go to the bottom of this article and subscribe today.}
There are very few creatives in DRTV history that have even come close to capturing the magic and energy — the wow — of Billy’s OxiClean commercials. Before I share one of them with you, let’s take a break and review what we’ve discussed so far. I want you to rate the following product idea using the D7 checklist and your own marketing intuition.
Product Description: A clear, odorless and non-staining formula that freshens and eliminates pet odors and will not stain carpets or clothing.
Take your time. Which criteria does the product meet? Which does it fail?
My evaluation is below.
Although this one checks most of my boxes, it fails the very first of the D7 criteria. That is, it’s not very unique. There are many pet odor eliminators on the market, including those from established brands such as Febreze, Arm & Hammer (fun fact: another Church & Dwight brand) and Resolve. If this product were pitched to me, I’d be skeptical for that reason. If I were tasked with marketing it, I’d be a little worried going against that entrenched competition.
The solution? Wow factor. Here’s how the marketer took on the challenge, turning a potentially unoriginal product into the #1 DRTV campaign in the country last year. (Remember Billy’s formula: energy + magic = wow.)
Lights are another interesting example of my thesis. As recently as 2015, I was preaching the following:
Lights are No. 3 on my list of bad categories ... Every once in a while, someone forces one into distribution, but that doesn’t necessarily justify the investment.
Almost exactly one year after I wrote that, we launched a light that would go on to become the eleventh most successful campaign of 2016. What made us violate my strongly held beliefs and publicly stated opinions? Wow fa—
OK, it was information. We had strong information that tactical lights were trending. But what also made us take the shot were some great demo ideas we knew would bring the wow. Sure enough, the product surviving our deviously devised ‘torture tests’ dazzled consumers and become the most memorable part of my commercial.
I could cite more examples, but you get the point. All the great pitchmen knew about this over-riding product quality, which is why the ones who transitioned to TV always made great commercials with lots of wow. One of them even put it right in the name of what would become his most successful product.
The Divine Seven Great Eight
1. UNIQUE
(Article: Build the Marketing Into Your Product to Maximize Sales)
2. MASS MARKET
(Article: These 3 Powerful Letters Can Greatly Improve Your Odds of Choosing Hit Products)
3. PROBLEM SOLVING
(Article: The Problem Scale Can Guide You Toward the ‘Heart Attack’ You Seek)
4. PRICED RIGHT
(Article: What a Huge Walmart Mistake Can Teach Us About Product Pricing)
5. EASILY EXPLAINED
(Article: Never Try to Sell a ‘Swiss Army Knife’)
6. AGE APPROPRIATE
(Article: Why TikTok Advertisers Shouldn’t Sell Canes)
7. CREDIBLE
(Article: Don’t Even Bother With Products That Can’t Live Up to the Hype)
8. WOW! 🤩
If you learned something from watching the wow-filled commercials above, then you’re going to love The Library of DRTV. It’s an online archive of ‘As Seen on TV’ projects going back to 2007 — indexed, cross-referenced and searchable. You can use it to go back in time to find ‘Old Gold’ products or discover near-miss projects that might inspire your next big success. Access is available to every paid subscriber of this newsletter, and a paid subscription costs just $5.99 per month or $59 for the year.
But wait, there’s more! Sign up today, and I’ll also include my “Hits Database” spreadsheet. This easy-to-use document lists nearly 2,800 successful DRTV campaigns, ranked and organized by year, going back a full 30 years! Cross-reference it with the information and videos in The Library, and you can dive deep on any hit since 1995 — plus get a world-class education in direct-response advertising along the way. So don’t delay!
