The Sharper Image® Super Juicer – A Marketing Review
When it comes to kitchen appliances and home cooking, juicers are beginning to become more and more popular in the modern kitchen.
My parents bought one in the early 1990s, and sure enough, it was pretty cool to extract the liquid and some of the nutrients from fruits and vegetables, making really fresh drinks. The only problem was that our juicer was a bitch to clean, so we ended up rarely using the appliance.
But that’s where advances in designs and other improvements have made many juicers not only more affordable but also easier to use and much easier to clean.
The Sharper Image® Super Juicer – TV commercial
www.theSuperJuicer.com
As far as the Super Juicer, well, it strikes me as being weird that a juicer was being advertised in a TV commercial in this manner. We’re not talking about a half hour infomercial with Jack LeLanne or Ron Popeil, but rather an extended TV commercial with a fast talking man talking to us like we’re complete idiots.
Let’s take a look at the TV commercial and see where it fails.
The commercial starts by asking us generic questions to common everyday issues with people, such as wanting to look younger, feel better, or even have “more energy than ever before.”
Gee, how can I, the person viewing the commercial, accomplish all of that? Do I have to wear a stupid “magic” bracelet on my wrist? Do I have to drink those tiny energy drinks that promise to give boosts of energy? Or can I just eat a better diet, get more rest, reduce levels of stress, and find ways to get moderate exercise every other day?
Oh, I can look younger, feel better and have more energy than ever before with a juicer. Okay.
“. . . the amazing new Super Juicer from Sharper Image.”
Notice how the guy doing the narrating doesn’t even say “Sharper Image” in a normal tone. He changes pitch and says it in a funny voice, acting like the brand name is more important than the product itself. Uh-oh!
For me, any time a salesmen puts more of an emphasis on a product’s manufacturer (or in this case, Sharper Image is the distributor) than the actual product itself, then it’s a warning. Like there must be some kind of flaw in the product, or the product really isn’t useful, and we’re being distracted by the “big name.”
Does that mean that this particular juicer has a major flaw or is a piece of garbage? Not necessarily. In this example it just means that the advertisers are going out of their way to make sure that we know that this is a Sharper Image juicer and not one of the other dozen brands. It’s just the tone in the guy’s voice that bothers me the most.
The commercial continues with small clips of the juicer and a woman extracting juices from fruit and vegetables. The next shot has a man and woman taking a sip of their fresh drink, the woman smiling and nodding her head in approval. The last shot of the short segment has the parents out running around with their kids. Aw, how nice.
Up next we have the obligatory shots of those “other” juicers. You know, those juicers that have just incredibly small openings and probably make you shout out curses and profanity just as you try to get a glass of fresh apple juice. Notice how the woman is having the hardest time trying to slice an apple into chunks so that it’ll fit into the “other” juicer. She lets out that breath of frustration as it takes her 2-3 hours to cut and juice a single apple.
Up next we learn that prepackaged juices are filled with, get this, SUGAR! Oh no! A sugary drink with fruit flavor has sugar in it! Oh, the humanity! Why don’t more parents know about this? I mean, this is huge! No more sugar! No more adding extra flavor or using preservatives to extend a product’s shelf life.
The problem when comparing the juicer with prepackaged “fruit” drinks (those sugary drinks with 20-25% fruit, not real fruit drinks with 85-95% fruit) is that you’re not making an honest comparison between the juicer and finished products. A better comparison would have been if the commercial focused on the high cost of orange juice in the store versus just buying oranges and squeezing them yourself, probably saving some money in the process. It’s not the best argument since a lot of fresh fruit is rather expensive, and to let your family have a few fresh fruit drinks during the week would probably require a refrigerator full of fruit. But that’s still more honest than simply comparing the benefits of fresh fruit versus a sugary drink with merely fruit flavor, such as Hawaiian Punch or Kool-Aid.
Up next in the commercial we see a woman loading whole fruits and vegetables into the Super Juicer’s oversized opening. Believe it or not, but it actually present a valid selling feature. Hooray!
That small moment of victory doesn’t last for too long as, once again <yawn>, this product is being compared to those “other” unnamed juicers.
“Other juicers leave delicious juice in the pulp! What a waste!”
Once again, the announcer does not speak in a normal tone and again sounds like he’s too eager to push the sale of the Super Juicer. He’s a little too excited when speaking of this flaw with the “other” juicers.
As we see in the computer simulation, the juicer’s high powered motor and stainless steel blades do a better job at separating the juice from the pulp. “So you get more juice.”
The next claim about the Super Juicer’s “megasized pulp collector” acting like a food processor is a little far-fetched. Food processors are similar to blenders where the large blades easily mix and mash both wet and dry food in a bowl. You cannot do that with juicers. You can simultaneously put things like carrots and celery into the juicer and use the pulp from both items in a recipe, but referring to that as being “like a food processor” is bogus. Next!
The commercial asks us why we would want to buy our family those sugary, store bought drinks when we can simply make the fresh drinks ourselves. And it’s only the Super Juicer from Sharper Image that will make those “. . . all natural juices, full of healthy vitamins and minerals.” We see the mom serving her two darling children the freshly made drinks. She would never serve them those nasty, sugary drinks from the store, right?
After that we see how the top part of the juicer and the metal blades come apart for easy cleaning in the dishwasher. That’s another good selling feature. It’s a little bit interesting how we don’t see the people trying to clean those “other” juicers like how we saw the other examples. Perhaps most models in the market today are fairly easy to clean.
The commercial hits us with the call to action next. They’re actually giving us an “amazing” risk free 30-day trial. “That’s right! Try it risk free for 30 days!”
This is another one of my pet peeves when it comes to annoying sales tactics. Whenever salesmen or voiceovers in commercials say things like “that’s right” or they just repeat the offer, acting like it’s such a good deal you didn’t believe what you heard, then that’s a big red flag. Most people are not your everyday fools, so there’s no need to treat them like one. If the commercial does its job of selling the product correctly, there will be no need to question a person’s hearing or judgment about an offer.
If you want to offer some kind of trial run, that’s fine. A lot of companies give demonstrations and allow you to do a trial run with the final product with your home, especially with more expensive items such as a mattress or home exercise gym. The reputable companies selling quality products know that they have little to fear with returns because of quality issues, while companies selling cheaper items know that many people who are dissatisfied will either A) just tolerate whatever issue(s) they had and end up keeping the item, or B) wait too long before deciding to return it for a refund.
A common tactic for many companies, both honest and unethical, is to offer the 30-day guarantee. They know that if you only had, say, seven days, you would test out the product and take a serious look for flaws and actively seek out a return or replacement. If time is a factor, the people will act on it when they only have a short amount of it. But if you give them thirty days to test a product, it’s very easy for people to delay testing and also delay taking action on any problems or issues. By the time the thirtieth day mark rolls around, chances are likely that a person would have forgotten about the guarantee’s expiration date and now they’re stuck with the product.
The 30-day exchange/refund/guarantee all happens for a reason, folks, and it’s not just from being required to have one or a company’s generosity.
The problem with this commercial is that these people are acting like it’s amazing that you can try out a product in your home “risk free” for up to thirty days. They still have your credit card information. They’ll still gladly bill you for the remainder of the purchase the moment that your trial period expires. But it’s not necessary to find an offer like this only through Sharper Image.
Depending on which appliance store you visit, you’ll find that many of them have respectable return and refund policies, even when you open and use the appliance. The reputable stores offer customer satisfaction guarantees usually for 7 or 14 or even 21 days. So if you try it out and just don’t like it, those reputable stores will accept the item back and give you a full refund even if there are no mechanical flaws or missing parts.
In reality, it’s not like this is the only way that you can try out using a juicer. The marketers want you to believe that this is the best option, which, without reading the fine print, it doesn’t sound that bad. The juicer’s landing page claims that the 30-day trial is only $14.95, and that includes shipping & handling. Do take note that there is no fine print on the landing page; no information about refunds or return shipping. “Customer Service” is a dead link on the page.
The commercial finishes by throwing in the free recipe guide to sweeten the deal, whether it actually does that or not. Once again we’re reminded about how using the product can help us both look and feel better.
That’s it.
I’m surprised that the commercial didn’t take the organic and living a “natural” lifestyle approach to selling the juicer. It could have also focused on people doing yoga in the background, or it could have even thrown around the “smart” and “balance” buzzwords. I’m glad that it didn’t, but the commercial was still way too exaggerated for what it was trying to accomplish.
It’s sad, but a really simple commercial showing off the Super Juicer’s features would have been more respectable and efficient than the route that the marketers took in the end.
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For more information about the Sharper Image Super Juicer, please visit the company’s website, theSuperJuicer.com.
Sharper Image is a registered trademark.
RellimZone.com is not affiliated with Sharper Image.