The world of consumer packaged goods (CPG) today is a broad swath of old brands being reborn, new campaigns and products full of profitable promise, and even plenty of body parts (yes, you read that right).

By: Doug McPherson

Long before the mammoth direct response consumer packaged good (CPG) product OxiClean, there was Jelmar, a company Manny Gutterman started in the late 1960s.

Today Jelmar offers a large suite of cleaning products. But long before he opened Jelmar, Gutterman created a national sales representative organization, Manny Gutterman & Associates Inc., in 1949 to sell all kinds of proprietary CPG products to chain drug, variety, hardware and department stores.

The sales channel was so successful, it gave Gutterman the direction and confidence to develop and sell his own brand-name products. And in the late 1960s, when a friend in advertising asked Gutterman to sell a warehouse full of cleaning products, he created Jelmar to do it.

Gutterman, along with sons Steven and Arthur, reformulated and repackaged the abandoned product and sold it as Tarn-X¬Æ. As one of the first products that used the phrase ‚“As Seen On TV” in commercials and on packaging, Tarn-X eventually became the No. 1-selling metal cleaner in the United States, as well as a household staple that can be found in every major retailer.

Jelmar kept growing, and in the 1980s, Gutterman and his sons, along with business partner, Al Eicoff, began looking for a complement to Tarn-X. They ended up with a powerful lime and rust remover, CLR® (calcium, lime and rust) was born.

Over the years Jelmar continued to introduce products including Thermal Fork, Tarn-X Silver Polish, Tarn-X Jewelry Cleaner, CLR Outdoor Furniture Cleaner, CLR Grease Magnet, CLR Power Plumber, CLR Bath & Kitchen Cleaner, and most recently, the new CLR Stainless Steel Cleaner and CLR Stone Cleaner.

Today, Jelmar remains in family hands. Arthur’s daughter, Alison Gutterman, became the president of Jelmar in 2007.

And she attributes much of the company’s sales success to direct response.

‚“We’ve created numerous spots over the years for the CLR line,” Gutterman says. ‚“The DRTV approach not only helped promote CLR’s full line of products in a single spot, but it helped increase the products’ retail distribution and shelf space and drove retail sales, too.”

In fact, Jelmar has parlayed its success from consumer circles to commercial sales.

‚“Now we have an industrial division and sell products up to 55-gallon drums,” Gutterman says. ‚“I’m sure that some of our success in that division is a result of people knowing our products from home use, and transferring them to a commercial use.”

A Perfect Fit: DR and CPG
Today the company Al Eicoff started back in 1959, A. Eicoff & Co., is a thriving DR agency in Chicago. And it’s still working with Jelmar. Bill McCabe, A. Eicoff & Co. president, says the story of Jelmar is a great example of why DR and CPG are a perfect fit.

‚“DR is a good sales vehicle for many reasons. We know it can both build a brand and generate results simultaneously, and when I say results, that includes coupon redemptions, website visits and sales along with store traffic and sales,” McCabe says. ‚“But an often overlooked advantage of DRTV for CPG is its ability to differentiate the product from others via longer-length commercials, one-to-two-minute spots. These spots cut through the clutter of 30-second spots and the additional time allows the spot to tell a more compelling and more memorable story.”

McCabe says he created two-minute commercials for Breathe Right nasal strips that he tested three times in five markets.

‚“With each test, the results were terrific. The client told us they asked us to run a third test because after the first two, no one could believe how great the results were,” McCabe says. ‚“The demonstrability of the product lent itself to DRTV, there was a motivating story to tell and the longer-length commercial helped differentiate the product.”

So what’s different about CPG compared to other categories that might make it a good candidate for DR? McCabe says one of his clients put it best ‚“when he told me that when consumers see their product in the store, there’s no way they can learn the story behind the product by just looking at the packaging.”

McCabe says DR gives them the both the opportunity and the time to tell their story so that when shoppers see the product in the store, they’re pre-sold.

‚“The best CPG products for direct response have a story to tell,” McCabe says. ‚“In many instances, these are relatively complex products, technology to explain, features to demonstrate, benefits that may not be obvious but are meaningful to consumers. These stories can’t be told in 30 seconds, and they can’t be told effectively without DRTV’s ability to demonstrate and motivate.”

In fact, McCabe believes CPG brands can often go it alone in DR without branding ads.

He says, ‚“A brand can stand alone because DRTV has become highly brand conscious as more and more blue chip companies include DRTV in their marketing mix (see sidebar, page 32). The best direct response advertisers and agencies know how to blend branding and response-producing elements seamlessly.”

Veterans’ Varied Vivid Examples
It’s tough to argue with McCabe’s take on the power of DR in CPG. Today there’s a huge selection of CPG products using DR to boost bottom lines. And there’s plenty of proof of some serious staying power.

Industry veterans have vivid examples.

Bill McAlister, president at Top Dog Direct, says Urine Gone, the pet stain and odor remover, is one of his oldest, most successful products. ‚“It’s been around the longest, about nine years, and I think it’s a good example of a consumer packaged good that just keeps selling,” McAlister says.

It’s sold in 24 oz. bottles with a black light that helps consumers detects stains.

‚“We get a lot of return customers, we’re selling refill jugs (a 48 oz. refill jug sells for $25.49 on Amazon.com and has a four-star rating from 110 reviews) and people are buying it over and over again,” McAlister says. ‚“It’s outselling other products three to one. And we’re all over in retail, Walmart, Target, everywhere.”

Infusion Brands Intl., the company behind AsSeenonTV.com, Ronco, DualTools and other brands, may have found a CPG winner in DOC C

loths. The company reports it has sold more than million on TV, and counting.

DOC Cloths include eight layers of woven wood pulp fiber and trap and release 99.99 percent of germs and bacteria when rinsed in warm water. Infusion Brands is selling the product on HSN.

A.J. Khubani, CEO and president at DR giant TELEBrands, says in the CPG category, things don’t get much better than Heeltastic, a cream that softens rough heels.

‚“It’s been selling about a million units a year since 2009, and the sales are very consistent month to month,” Khubani says. ‚“For Heeltastic, there was a true void in the marketplace. There was no good product for cracked heels.”

Late-night yell-and-sell pitches have given way to sophisticated, multichannel, ROI-centric campaigns.

"Uh oh! Has this ever happened to you?”

What was once the relatable rallying cry of direct response marketing has become a tired joke. But the direct response (DR) discipline itself is far from finished. The world's largest brands are increasingly emboldened to go beyond seeking mindshare and ask for the sale. And infomercial kings now boast of driving an ever-increasing amount of their sales from indirect channels.

It's an upside-down world. But here are nine new direct response marketing realities to guide you through it.

Channel surfing isn't coming back...

TV viewership is on a steady decline among all but the oldest demographics, and DVR and streaming services aren't going anywhere. Events such as major live sports continue to draw outsized audiences, but media rates for such programming are well out of the reach of the typical direct response ROI. So smart DR marketers need to find ways to reach audiences intentionally, rather than accidentally.

One solution is to make a direct appeal to well-qualified prospects for viewership of direct response content (see ‚“Live Streaming the Direct Response Way” on page 23 for an eye-opening example). Another is to expand the search radius for media beyond the traditional day parts and time formats associated with DRTV. ‚“Before, two-minute spots were my favorite, but I now can buy a lot of five-minute inventory. I'm surprised at the availability, especially on cable,” says Telebrands CEO AJ Khubani.

...but TV audiences are more targeted than ever

Let the ever-widening landscape of cable and digital broadcast channels and programming work for you by doing a deeper demographic dive. The long-term success stories in DRTV have shifted with their audiences, offering more targeted products that resonate with live viewership. ‚“The wisdom used to be that [DRTV spots] had to be universally appealing, but at this point I can target children, senior citizens, muscle-heads, or couch potatoes,” says Collette Liantonio, president of studio Concepts TV Productions. ‚“There are enough stations, enough broadcast media, and enough Internet that I can appeal to almost anyone. Twenty years ago you couldn't sell a product for cats on TV; now it's a mainstay.”

Relationships have a place in direct response

Customer retention and horizontal integration aren't found in old-school spray-and-pray shilling, but direct response is today more than just a one-time sale. Consider the case of Infusion Brands, a direct response marketer that controls both the venerable Ronco products brand and the newer eDiets lifestyle brand.

Rather than operating them as two separate lines of business, Infusion plans to create more value by painting the two as the ideal combination for a healthy lifestyle, building more lifetime value and cross-selling opportunities with no additional marketing cost. ‚“Everybody who calls in after a Ronco infomercial may not convert to a purchase, but we can offer all of them a free subscription to eDiets,” says Bob DeCecco, Infusion Brands CEO. ‚“That's a cost-per-acquisition of zero, because we already spent the money on the Ronco infomercial, and we can combine the hardware of Ronco with the software of the eDiets program.”

Kickstarter is the new infomercial

A compelling offer for a previously unheard of product, one not sold in stores; video presentations that lean heavily on the credibility and charisma of scrappy inventors making their cases directly to the public; a special bonus if you act now; another special bonus for just a few dollars more.

This is not a TV spot for a new chicken rotisserie. It's Kickstarter. Although Kickstarter styles itself a ‚“crowdfunding” platform and not a pure sales medium, it bears the key hallmarks of direct response. Instead of upselling viewers ‚“for a few dollars more” to pick up a spatula or some extra coat hangers, Kickstarter lets buyers earn extra benefits by funding projects for more than the minimum ‚“purchase” price.

The benefits can be capped at a certain limit, and the entire funding process only lasts a maximum of 60 days. ‚“It's the purest example of modern direct response, and the structure removes every barrier to the sale,” says Joshua C. Mabus, owner of Mabus Agency. ‚“I see that 89 of 100 backer promos have been sold and I know I have to be fast to get in on the last 11. It's the limited-time offer' in a modern, cool way.”

More than two million people funded Kickstarter projects in the first half of 2014. Nearly 70% were first-time Kickstarter users. Disregard Kickstarter's DR potential at your own peril.