1999

Last month we talked about fourth-quarter media buying challenges and the importance of rigorous follow-up media analysis. Here is a system to help you manage the year-end infomercial beast.

Leaves are turning; football is in the air. And there's a chill in DRTV ville. It's Fourth Quarter. The kids scamper inside as Red October approaches-that dreaded convergence of increased media rates and lagging vewership. To complicate matters, with the loss of cable network Eye on People, which was a great working venue for a lot of paid programming, the loss of More Music, and with WTBS not coming back as a paid-programming broadcaster, there are fewer choice infomercial slots available. The supply and demand equation is definitely going to be biased toward the supply side. It's a seller's market.

When infomercials made their debut in the mid '80s, it was difficult to find celebrities willing to attach themselves to this type of format. DRTV programs were widely perceived as low-budget productions featuring hard-sell pitches and wildly exaggerated claims, delivered by "yell and sell" hosts who targeted vulnerable late-night television viewers.

A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose but, alas, by any other name a fanciful infomercial would still stink. My apologies to Gertrude Stein and William Shakespeare for pruning their verse as I set out to dispel the on-going misconception that anyone can produce an infomercial. Granted, the making of an infomercial is not rocket science, but it is a multifaceted discipline encompassing a broad array of skills, experience, insight, teamwork, creativity and so much technical, intellectual and artistic competence. The casual viewer who sees only the end product, however, is unaware of the aggregate time, talent and effort represented in those 28 and a half minutes.