Patch Perfect (grass seed) – A Marketing Review
It’s summertime again, folks!
Yeah, as if we didn’t already know that thanks to this relentless heat wave. How many heat records have been broken within the past week or two? It’s just scorching hot this year.
For many of us, summertime means taking care of the lawn. Unless you regularly water, aerate and fertilize your lawn, chances are you’re got some bad patches. If you have a dog or heavy foot traffic, then you probably have many brown spots and “dead zones.”
As tempting as it may be to rip out the lawn entirely and just have a yard full of dirt, there supposedly is an easier way to fix those bad patches in your lawn. No, the answer is not to set lethal traps to catch the neighbors from cutting through your lawn. As tempting as it may be (especially when the kids know better and still keep disrespecting your yard anyway), setting lethal traps only leads to legal problems down the road. When it comes to fixing the bad spots in your yard, the correct answer may be as easy as some really special grass seed.
Patch Perfect website — www.PatchPerfect.com
Patch Perfect probably sounds familiar to many of you. This product has actually been advertised on TV for several years now. And, not surprisingly, the Patch Perfect TV commercial has been virtually unchanged for the past few years. Check it out now.
Patch Perfect TV commercial
Let’s take a closer look and try to see what the marketers for Patch Perfect are really trying to sell us.
Patch Perfect TV commercial – The horrors of a terrible lawn!
The Patch Perfect TV commercial begins with the absolute worst of horrors — a bad lawn.
Actually, this isn’t just a bad lawn. This is a horrendous lawn. This is the type of lawn where neighbors can’t help but stare at your complete lack of contempt towards your own property. It may even cause them to have a sudden evacuation of their bowels. This is a lawn so bad that not even your neighbor’s dog would stop and “take care of business” on it any longer. We’re talking really bad.
Patch Perfect TV commercial – The fight for your lawn begins NOW!
It’s time to grab handfuls of weeds, pound your fists against the pitiful grass, and get F@#&ING ANGRY! “This lawn is nasty as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”
A new dawn is rising.
The tide is about to turn in the war for your lawn.
This time the battle will be different. No longer are you just going to throw some crappy Brand X seed on the bad spots and hope for a miracle. This time you’ll be using a secret weapon — Patch Perfect. It’s payback time!
Patch Perfect TV commercial — Faster, thicker & fuller – just like the stuff that you applied to your bald spot.
In what can be confused as a slogan for a hair growth product, the Patch Perfect promises to come in faster, thicker and fuller. Let’s hope that it can live up to those expectations. It’s hard letting the grass grow long enough so you can “comb over” those bad spots with a rake.
Patch Perfect TV commercial — Shake, shake, shake. Shake, shake, shake. Shake that grass seed bag, that grass seed bag.
Okay, that doesn’t quite have a ring to it like that certain song. What is interesting is the Patch Perfect’s “spread it and forget it” slogan. It’s dangerously close to Ron Popeil’s famous “Set is, and forget it!” slogan for his Showtime Rotisserie cooking aid.
I wonder if Patch Perfect has instructions for any alternative ways of spreading the grass seed. Shaking a bag may be okay for spreading the seeds on a small patch or two, but it’s going to get annoying fast when trying to fix any larger areas of lawn. Normally fertilizers and other seeds are spread with mechanical spreading devices to ensure an even area of coverage. I imagine it being hard to evenly cover an area if you’re just shaking a bag.
Patch Perfect TV commercial — Just how much of that lawn was seeded?
Did anybody else notice that it looks like more than just the areas of pet urine were supposedly covered with the Patch Perfect grass seed?
It’s rather fascinating how the dark green areas of grass in the “before” shot are suddenly much brighter and greener in the “after” shot. It’s almost like the entire area was seeded with Patch Perfect and not just those three pet urine spots.
Patch Perfect TV commercial — How much shaking did it take to cover this much of an area?
Here we have a comparison of not the before and after shots, but rather the thick layer of Patch Perfect that was applied in this bare section of the yard.
I’m curious as to how much Patch Perfect it took to create this thick of a layer of grass seed. The website claims that the “double size” (a.k.a. buy-one-get-one-free) version of Patch Perfect covers 100 square feet of lawn. Okay, but what about bare patches like this? How much Patch Perfect did it take to cover this, say, five-foot by five-foot area of dirt with a thick layer of grass seed?
Patch Perfect TV commercial — Erase that foot trail through the lawn!
Again we’re seeing the versatility of Patch Perfect. This example shows how easy it supposedly is to erase the foot path and restore your lawn back to its previous greatness.
The only problem is one that we saw in a previous example — it looks like more than just the path was covered with Patch Perfect. Unless we’re seeing a trick with the slightly different lighting conditions, it looks like the rest of the grass suddenly became brighter and greener. How about panning the camera so we can see how the rest of the yard matches with this small area of Patch Perfect?
Patch Perfect TV commercial — It’s, like, a cocoon, man. That’s far out.
Unfortunately, this is about as technical as the Patch Perfect gets. You’ll have to keep guessing if you want to know any other details such as the grass type.
Patch Perfect TV commercial — Take that, those ‘other’ brands of grass seeds!
No as-seen-on-TV commercial is complete without a comparison to those “other” (and most likely evil) grass seeds dominating in the marketplace.
As we can clearly see, Patch Perfect dominates over that “other” brand and is the better superior product. It kicked the other product’s ass so badly that it isn’t even worth mentioning which grass seed they were comparing it to. This animated humiliation is enough of a punishment for that “ordinary” grass seed.
Why are you still reading this article? Didn’t that clearly unbiased animation convince you that Patch Perfect is the greatest grass seed on the market?
Patch Perfect TV commercial — It even trims your bushes, too!
As if Patch Perfect wasn’t a miracle product for your lawn, apparently the product also cuts the bushes as well. Take a look at the front corner of the house? Notice anything drastically different to help make the “fixed” lawn more appealing?
Maybe what the Patch Perfect does is inspire you to get off your lazy butt and go take care of your yard. Make that yard look so great that the neighbors’ kids will smile as the see the lush landscape and feel the soft grass underneath their feet as they still cut across your yard.
On a side note, just how many bags of Patch Perfect did it really take to cover a lawn of that size? Based on the uniform texture of the finished lawn, I’m guessing that a very liberal layer of the grass seed was used for this shot. If a person has a similar sized lawn and wants this very result, how much money will it cost him or her in the end? Should they just pay a team of workers to rip out the dead crap and lay new grass?
More importantly, how will that same lawn look one year later?
It may just be me, but it also looks like the house was cleaned and pressure washed for the “after” shot. Take a look at the right side of the house, the garage door, and the area above the garage door. All of those spots look brighter and cleaner in the “after” image, further enhancing the look of the “perfect” lawn for the final image.
Patch Perfect TV commercial — At least it’s not growing on a guy’s palms.
The end of the commercial shows us how well the Patch Perfect grass seed grows on concrete.
Yeah, yeah. The seeds clump together and are capable of growing on virtually any surface. So a few days after planting, supposedly you’ll have something resembling a piece of sod. Wonderful.
The more important question is, how long will it take for the grass’s roots to take hold of the ground? Since it supposedly grows quickly, is there a danger of the lawnmower displacing and possibly tearing apart chunks of the new grass?
Hopefully questions like that are in the instruction manual because it’s nowhere to be found on the product’s incredibly simple (and poorly designed) website.
This marks the end of the TV commercial on YouTube. The website’s version of the commercial continues for a few more seconds with the offer for the product. As it’s explained, this as-seen-on-TV product is only sold in the buy-one-get-on-free format. What makes the Patch Perfect different from the other BOGO promotions is that apparently the company is not gouging you for the extra shipping and handling fees. In fact, it looks like they don’t even charge any extra in the promotion.
If I’m reading it correctly on the website, the TOTAL PRICE for the Patch Perfect promotion is only $16.98 ($9.99 + $6.99 S&H). Unlike those other as-seen-on-TV products, there’s no mention of a money-back guarantee on the Patch Perfect website.
Patch Perfect website — Internet only discount.
The price is actually a little bit cheaper if you visit the website and then leave that page BEFORE placing your order. Leaving the page makes a pop-up window appear and offer to take $5 off your total. In theory, this knocks the total price down to only $11.98.
WARNING – Be careful if you enter your credit card company and press the “Order Now” button. Many of these as-seen-on-TV company websites do NOT give you a final confirmation screen before accepting your CC number.
FINAL THOUGHTS
After watching the Patch Perfect TV commercial and scanning its website, my first thought was that this is apparently one of those “miracle” products. I refer to it as a miracle product because neither the commercial or website offer any real details about the product.
The website (one place that they could easily stock with information) is virtually useless for product information. The TV commercial just runs with the attitude that a few sprinkles of the grass seed here and there will make your lawn suddenly look fabulous. A major problem with this attitude is that it’s clear that the people used a heavy “dusting” of the product over more than just the troubled spots. The side-by-side images of the commercial help prove this point. There’s fine print on the screen during those scenes, but it’s impossible to read in the video.
So does anything really separate the Patch Perfect grass seed from any other quick growing grass seeds on the market? Many of the home improvement and landscaping stores offer a variety of fast growing grass seeds, many of them claiming to grow in the shade and other “extreme” growing conditions.
When you put the Patch Perfect on an even playing field with other fast growing grass seeds, does it have any advantages? Can it perform better than the more famous products out there? Does it bring anything else to the table?
It’s those questions and more that should at least be answered on the product’s website, and not instead a brief synopsis of the already lame TV commercial. Sadly, the important questions remain unanswered. The commercial takes the overly simplified route for selling the product, and the website looks like it was created as a middle school class project.
On a side note, I kept wanting to call this product “Perfect Patch” and not Patch Perfect. Don’t know why, but it just sounds better that way.
For my yard, I think I’ll let parts of it stay brown. The brown and general unevenness help disguise the dog’s droppings. Watch your step, neighbors. 
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All of the Patch Perfect commercial images were screenshots of a TV commercial currently available on Youtube. For more product information, please visit the company’s website at www.PatchPerfect.com.
RellimZone.com is not affiliated with Patch Perfect.