SHAMWOW: A MEDIA RAGS TO RICHES STORY
Here’s a media rags to riches story with a literal twist.
Following the relative success of selling a DVD movie via informercials, writer, director and actor Vince Offer thought that he should sell something more mainstream. Offer decided in 2006 to market a cleaning product that he’d seen at the flea markets he frequented; an absorbent towel that he called the ShamWow!
The Sham Wow apparently holds “20 times its weight in liquid” … wait … that was before an official Consumer Reports test was done on the product and the claim was quickly changed to “12 times its weight in liquid”, then again to “10 times”. Consumer Reports America and found that it does indeed hold 10 times its weight in liquid but not a drop more. (Customers on the Consumer Reports blog don’t sound wowed with the product either, which has apparently sold in the millions but left a swathe of users poh-faced.)
Whatever the case, Shamwow has some fans. The infomercial that is. Filmed in the summer of 2007 with a budget of $20,000, the tv promo has become a popular hit, making Offer a cult classic icon among teens, Youtube DJs and get-rich-quick entrepeneurs, for his mesmerizing pitchman delivery and dead pan lines such as “you know the Germans always make good stuff”!
Moral of the story: You just never know who’s going to make it or break it in media. All I can say is “Sham? Wow! Follow me camera guy?”
For more of my musings, visit www.influenceinmedia.com
I’m an outed Michael Jackson fan, I love cookies & cream ice cream, I hunt for bargain Sass & Bide sales and I produce TVCs and digital media campaigns to pay the bills – and I’ve had alot of fun pulling together crazy-hot concept ideas for clients like Fairfax Media, Gloria Jeans Coffees, Toyota, Lexus, Optus, NineMSN, E*Trade and most recently HP, Virgin, Fiat, Alfa Romeo and Advil. I love my life! Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/viral-marketing-articles/shamwow-a-media-rags-to-riches-story-1062370.html
’m also crazy about the digital revolution. And in particular the underground movement of digital content spawners spearheading what I call “the silent army of organic architects”.
More on this on later. And ’nuff about me.
