"But Wait There's More!"

Ron Popeil is a famous inventor and marketing personality who also founded the Ronco Corporation, a direct response marketing company. Popeil appeared in numerous infomercials for products such as the "Showtime Rotisserie", and is know for using such infamous lines as: "But wait, there's more!" and "Now, how much would you pay?" - followed by a series of prices all markedly higher than the offer price.

In 1993 Popeil was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize (a parody Nobel)in Consumer Engineering for recognizing him for "redefining the industrial revolution" with his products and infomercials.

Popeil may be most well-known for the Chop-O-Matic and Veg-O-Matic that signaled his introduction into television. The product was so great at chopping vegetables that it was inefficient for salesmen to carry around the vegetables with them on demonstrations. Popeil saw that the solution was to tape the demonstration and broadcast it as a commercial.

Some other great-selling Popeil products are:

-The Solid Flavor Injector

-Inside the Shell Egg-Scrambler

-Popeil Pasta Maker

"DRTV Management Boot Camp"

June 9-11th the CEO of the Direct Response Academy, Greg Sarnow, will be leading a DRTV Management class in New York that will focus on nutraceutical and cosmeceutical products. Greg Sarnow is well-known in the industry for his success in launching and managing many nutraceutical and cosmeceutical products.

Products in this industry are often able to do very well in infomercials, however there are many complex rules and legal issues that have a significant impact on the products. The class aims to analyze the effects of these rules on advertising for these products and the direct response television campaign in general.

The class will be over the course of three days. A few main topics to be discussed are as follows:

-Creating persuasive offers
-Effective Lead Generation
-Solutions for campaign roll-outs
-An in-depth look at details of a DRTV advertising campaign
-Vendor Accountability
-Telemarketing Strategies
-Customer Service
-Financial models

..and many more

For more information on how to participate in the course you may visit the Direct Response Academy website.

FCC Fines Analog TV Retailers $3.9 million

Seven major retailers were fined a total of $3.9 million by the FCC for not alerting consumers that some analog television sets they sell are not equipped to deal with the transition to digital-only broadcasting, which Federal law calls for to occur next February.

Current law requires retailers to inform consumers if the analog television sets they are selling do not have the digital converters, which means owners of those TVs will have to purchase a separate converter or pay a service fee (such as cable) to be able to use the sets starting next February.

The FCC stated in its charges that some stores, such as Circuit City had been warned as many as 32 times to comply with the law. After the warnings, follow-up inspections revealed that 25 of their stores were still not properly disclosing that their analog TVs were not equipped with digital converters. The store was then fined $8,000 per set that was not marked.

Sears Holding Corp. received the largest of the seven fines totaling $1 million. Other major retailers fined were: Target Corp., Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Fry's Electronics, Comp USA, and Best Buy Co. All the retailers have 30 days to pay or appeal the decisions.

So, beware if planning to purchase a television and check to see if it comes with a digital converter to avoid having to purchase one later.

PoundSky: Interactive Radio and TV Broadcasting

The company SkyClix announced today the launch of it's newest service PoundSky in southern California. PoundSky turns regular broadcasting into an interactive platform where broadcasters and advertisers can directly connect to consumers at no cost. The service allows consumers to immediately receive information through their mobile phones about advertisements and on-air content from the radio and/or television. It is the first service of its kind in the world. It's also free and carrier agnostic, meaning it works on nearly any kind of mobile telephone service.

Here's how it works: while listening to the radio or watching TV a consumer simply dials #SKY (#759) on their mobile phone and holds it up to the sound of the radio or TV for 15 seconds. Within a minute the consumer receives information about what they are listening to and they can choose what they would like to do, for example they can download coupons, enter a contest, call the radio station and more.

The service is great because it allows consumers to receive the information they want as soon as they want it. Broadcasters and advertisers benefit from being able to instantly reach consumers instead of just trying to make a lasting impression on them through advertisements and hope they remember them later.

Jack LaLanne Power Juicer

Jack LaLanne, also known as the "godfather of fitness" has created the LaLanne Power Jucier, a high-powered, pulp-catching juicer. It's innovative design creates up to 30% more juice, vitamins and nutrients per glass! And the best part is you don't have to waste time slicing up your fruits and vegetables, you can simply drop in whole fruits and the juicer does all the work, it even catches all the pulp so you're left with the pure delicious juice.


The LaLanne Power Juicer features:

* Dishwasher safe.
* 16" tall. 6' cord. UL listed.
* Includes two FREE bonuses, Accessory Pack and Recipe Guide ($20 value) with purchase.