DRTV History: K-Tel’s Big British Gamble

In the late 1960s, Phil Kevis, founder and president of K-Tel International, was looking to sell his “Miracle Brush” product in the United Kingdom. He had already sold 28 million brushes in North America and was looking to repeat his success across the pond.

Kevis ran into difficulty when none of the department stores he approached overseas would stock his product. This was a big problem for K-Tel because, at the time, the company sold its products exclusively through retail stores. TV ads would describe the product and then list names of stores carrying the gadget at the very end.

Though each store refused to carry K-Tel’s product, Kevis went ahead and bought British airtime for his ads. And, in those ads, he did something very daring. Even though none of the stores he’d approached were going to carry his product, he listed their names at the end of the ad anyway! The ad told viewers that the product was available at a number of UK stores when, in fact, it was not.

Kevis’ gamble paid off. Viewers went to the stores asking for the Miracle Brush in such high numbers that each store came back to Kevis begging to stock the product they’d previously rejected!

K-Tel was able to create demand for its product and, in effect, have its customers lobby for product placement when the company’s own efforts failed.