In a continuing collaboration with Scott over at Straight to the Bar, we will be writing about training and media influences throughout the month of August. Scott writes about infomercials this week to finish the series.
Informercials are big business. There needs to be a very high sales ratio with an average cost of $500,000 to produce a product on top of marketing expenses. As such, there are often some less than ideal advertising claims that are made that are pretty ridiculous and which are not validated by any central authority. Scott includes a snippet from one such advertisement in the article.
Scott would like some changes made to make informercials a little more honest. He would like to see kids better educated about fitness at the primary school level so that they can better ascertain between a worthless product and one that will actually be worth using, he would like to see an end to payment plans for cheap products (which can increase the price that you pay by 30% or more) and he would like to see some sort of support for any medical claims made in the infomercials.
Of course, most infomercials that I have watched have a small disclaimer that states that the product works well when combined with diet and exercise. Just about anything that is not self-destructive will work well with diet and exercise no matter what your goals are, since you need the diet and exercise to reach those goals.
If you have any other suggestions for how to improve infomercials so that they are actually worth something, then leave a comment on the original article over at Straight to the Bar.
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