Bright Light Pillow (Bright, Light Up Pillow) – A Marketing Review
Darkness has saturated your home as the hands on the wall clock approach the midnight hour.
Ordinarily, night is one of your most treasured times at home. You stretch out in bed, watch some of the crappiest cartoons on the air waves, and just let your mind wander as you slowly drift closer and closer to sleep. That is, until your six-year-old kid began having nightmares again.
It’s a case of the good, old fashioned bogeyman. Not the phantom stench of unholy terror that hangs around the bathroom after burrito night, but rather a homicidal maniac that speaks only in whispers, wears a clown costume stained with blood, has uncontrollable flatulence, and patiently waits underneath your bed, waiting to snatch your feet and slash you with its rusty machete blade, a blade that is slowly sharpened as the bogeyman waits for his next victim.
Or there’s the case of Leroy the Alligator Snapping Turtle. Leroy quietly waits underneath your bed, keeping its mouth open, and patiently waiting for your feet or toes. As soon as you dangle your foot right outside of his dark home . . . CHOMP! Your ankle is now a mangled stump with broken bones, torn flesh, and blood squirting onto the floor. Good luck getting that image out of your head tonight!
You’re tried night lights, but that doesn’t work as the child still claims to hear “monster sounds.” She’s obviously scared of the dark. If only there was a way for her to have something soft that lights up in a variety of colors.
Bright Light Pillow website — www.BrightLightPillow.com
What’s this? The Bright Light Pillow? Can it really be the answer for making bed time significantly less scary and frightful?
Heading over to the product’s website, you can see the fancy pillows along with the current TV commercial. Let’s take a closer look and review the advertisement. Perhaps we’ll even find a problem or two along the way.
Bright Light Pillow TV commercial – Mommy, it was so scary! It wanted me to clean my room!
The Bright Light Pillow advertisement begins with a scene too familiar with most parents. It’s a little kid who is afraid of the dark. You know there’s nothing scary in the kid’s room, but merely telling the kid that fact means nothing. It’s going to take something far more than just your reassurance to get the kid to sleep tonight.
You may have to do some parenting.
Or, better yet, maybe there’s a toy or something else that you can substitute for parenting.
Bright Light Pillow TV commercial – Here’s your stupid little night light thingy. Take it or leave it.
What about using night lights?
Some night lights can provide enough light to make the kid less fearful of the dark, but that doesn’t work for everybody. Plus, as we learned in an insightful Berenstain Bears book, night lights might cast extra spooky shadows on the wall, thus leading to more fears of the dark.
Bright Light Pillow TV commercial – That’s it. I’m taking back the pillow!
How about just handing the kid a pillow that lights up?
Could it be? Can a pillow that lights up help a child reduce, or even eliminate, his or her fear of the dark?
It’s almost like a catch-22 when you think about it.
When a child is afraid of the dark, many times they try to change the experience by hiding underneath a sheet or a blanket. Other times they’ll try to sleep with mom and dad, using their presence to help themselves ease their fear of being alone in the dark.
A toy like the Bright Light Pillow, on the other hand, encourages children to stay outside of the covers and use the pillow’s colorful light as a form of comfort in a fearful situation. As you’ll see in examples in the commercial, it looks like the Bright Light Pillow isn’t anywhere near as bright as an ordinary night light. Nor does it cast fun shapes onto the walls. It looks like it simply a pillow that glows in a variety of colors.
So can a night toy like the Bright Light Pillow help a child who is afraid of the dark?
If a toy can help encourage a child to stay focused on something fun at night, then I would believe that chances are good that it can also help curb said child’s fear of the dark. If the dark becomes fun, then the dark is no longer something to be feared.
Bright Light Pillow TV commercial – My background glows brighter than my pillows!
So just how *bright* is the Bright Light Pillow?
That’s kind of hard to determine. Here we see at least three Bright Light Pillows on this girl’s bed, but there’s also a LOT of ambient light in the background. There’s too much extra light to see what the Bright Light Pillows can do on their own.
Bright Light Pillow TV commercial – My heart-shaped pillow glows red, but not all of it.
Again we’re being told that the pillow is BRIGHT, but again there’s a lot of extra lighting in this commercial. In this scene there’s so much extra light that the heart-shaped Bright Light Pillow is casting a very pronounced shadow on the girl’s regular pillow. Either she has a massive night light in her room, or there’s something funny going on with the lighting conditions here.
Bright Light Pillow TV commercial – Ha! I’m PRETENDING to work on my LAPTOP. Notice how my screen is NOT glowing.
This is closer to how the Bright Light Pillow looks under realistic conditions. Even though the blinds are doing little from stopping the massive amount of light from shining through the window, here we can see that the multi-colored version of the Bright Light Pillow looks pretty neat in a dimly lit room.
Of course, this is with TWO of the Bright Light Pillows in the scene. It also helps that the girl’s laptop is turned off. If she was really using her laptop then the bright screen would light up the front of her body. In this case she’s very dark, indicating that the laptop is either in stand by mode or turned off. If the laptop was running then this scene wouldn’t look nearly as impressive as it does now.
On a side note, I cannot tell if that’s a third (and poorly lit) Bright Light Pillow on the far left side, or if those lights are being reflected from the middle pillow.
Bright Light Pillow TV commercial – It’s soooooo soothing!
So what’s the secret with the Bright Light Pillow?
Throughout the commercial we’re reminded that the Bright Light Pillow is soft and cuddly. Here we see that the square pillows contain 24 LED lights. Good things about LED lights are that they give off very little heat, and as a whole, LED lights tend to have long lifespans. LED lights can also be very bright, and that can help a product like the Bright Light Pillow look even more appealing.
A quick scene right before this one shows us how to activate the product. All it takes is a “tap” of the Bright Light Pillow to turn on the lights. However, that “tap” looks more like a squeeze as the kid’s hands almost touch in the middle of the pillow. Apparently this helps qualify the Bright Light Pillow as being “smart,” whatever that means. Remember that “smart” is a hot buzzword these days in the world of product marketing and advertising, especially when it’s geared towards women.
Bright Light Pillow TV commercial – Snoring away in dreamland thanks to help from the brightest pillow in the room.
On of the “smart” aspects of the Bright Light Pillow is that it has a fifteen-minute timer before it switches off.
Question – If you head is on the Bright Light Pillow, as in this scene, wouldn’t that trigger the activation and keep the pillow glowing as long as something heavy is on the pillow?
Bright Light Pillow TV commercial – Screw the glowing PILLOW. I’ve got a glowing BLANKET!
What the f&$k is this?!? Some sort of glowing blanket?
What does this have to do with the Bright Light Pillow? Why is this glowing blanket featured in this scene? This looks like a product that deserves its own as-seen-on-TV commercial.
Bright Light Pillow TV commercial – Green and red ambient lighting. You know what that means! It’s time for CHRISTMAS!
Here we can see that in normal lighting conditions the Bright Light Pillow is not very impressive. In fact, we can hardly tell that it’s even glowing.
But when you turn off the lights . . .
In this case the Bright Light Pillows look interesting because of the additional GREEN and RED LIGHTS behind the girl’s bed. Who in the world would decorate their kid’s room like that? Can we have a true example of the Bright Light Pillows WITHOUT any extra lighting?
Bright Light Pillow TV commercial – What if you don’t want it to change colors?
This is close. Although the Bright Light Pillows are grouped together to create a bright mass of colors, it looks like this may be one of the first scenes showing the pillows in a dark room and without any extra lights.
That’s not really the point though right here.
In this scene we’re told that the Bright Light Pillow changes color automatically. However, the advertisement doesn’t tell us jack squat about this feature.
Does the pillow periodically change colors once every few minutes? Does it only change colors each time you activate it? Is there any way to keep it a constant color?
Bright Light Pillow TV commercial – It’s just so much FUN!
Is it true?
Are we actually seeing the Bright Light Pillow in a DARK environment?
In this scene we’re seeing the power of the Bright Light Pillow. Whether or not it’s impressive is up to you and your incredibly high standards. To me it looks like we’re being distracted by watching two kids toss the pillows across the room.
Would a TV commercial possibly distract or mislead you in any way?
Nah. Of course not!
Bright Light Pillow TV commercial – We’re the three best friends with Bright Light Pillows that anybody can ever have!
Here we have three girls and their heart-shaped Bright Light Pillows.
As it’s been mentioned earlier in the article, look beyond their smiles at all of the extra lighting in the room. It’s so bright that you can clearly see those appliances in the background.
Why would you need so much extra lighting if the pillows themselves are supposedly bright? Hell, it’s even in the name of the product — BRIGHT Light Pillow.
Bright Light Pillow TV commercial – Next thing you know he’ll be watching episodes of My Little Pony.
The Bright Light Pillows were just made for little kids, right?
Nope.
According to the advertisement, nearly anybody can enjoy the Bright Light Pillows. In this scene we see what appears to be a teenage BOY cuddling with his Bright Light Pillow. His mommy turns off his bedroom light and we see him happily curled up with his bright pillow.
Back in my days we had a terms for boys who acted like girls. They were called anything from pansies to sissies to, well, you know. These “girly boys” were frequently tormented and ridiculed because they acted like girls instead of men.
Can boys older than six years old have a Bright Light Pillow? Sure. Just make sure that none of his friends or classmates learn about the pillow. If they do, then any social life that the boy might have will certainly be destroyed, and this almost certainly includes future dating with girls.
Bright Light Pillow TV commercial – A decoration in dark rooms — for only fifteen minutes at a time.
We’re also shown that teenagers and adults enjoy the Bright Light Pillows for their decorative element in darkened rooms.
Of course, this is a decoration that stays lit for only fifteen minutes at a time. Remember that selling feature of the pillow, about how you can fall asleep and not worry about it draining the battery since it has that timer? Well, that same “feature” works against you when you want to use the pillow as a decoration and wish for it to stay lit up for more than just fifteen minutes at a time.
Bright Light Pillow TV commercial – The pillows clearly stand out in a dark room.
Here’s another before and after shot of the Bright Light Pillows, and perhaps the most accurate one yet.
In this scene most of the ambient lights are gone. It’s just the two girls, their Bright Light Pillows, and an active laptop (unlike the earlier scene where the laptop was turned off).
In this example we can see that the pillows just are not impressive at all when the room has a lot of light. But when you turn off the lights, all of a sudden they look much better. The pillow on the left is obviously brighter because of the light coming from the laptop’s screen. Otherwise, this is probably the most accurate example of the Bright Light Pillows in this advertisement.
Bright Light Pillow TV commercial – Where in the hell are the pillows?
So how else can you have fun with your Bright Light Pillows?
Why, in a slumber party, of course!
The only problem here is that once again, that magical, light up blanket is stealing the scene. Where are the Bright Light Pillows? It’s difficult to see them with that impressive blanket dominating this example.
Bright Light Pillow TV commercial – It’s time for the promotion!
At the end of the commercial we’re hit with the promotion. Unlike other as-seen-on-TV advertisements, there is no big promotion. There’s no offer to receive anything when you order the product.
The TOTAL COST of the Bright Light Pillow promotion costs $27.98 ($19.99 + $7.99 S&H). This is just for ONE of the Bright Light Pillows. Remember that it does NOT include three AA batteries that are needed in the pillow.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The Bright Light Pillow is yet another product that is primarily focused on helping children ease or eliminate their fear of the dark.
As it was mentioned earlier in this review, I believe that the concept behind this product can help kids ease their fear of the dark. It’s certainly possible that Bright Light Pillows can help conquer that common fear in children.
As far as the advertisement itself, it’s not a coincidence that most of the examples with dark rooms have a LOT of ambient lighting in the background. It helps make everything brighter, and it might convince people that the pillow is brighter than how it really looks in a completely dark environment.
This is all part of advertising. The more exaggerated and unrealistic the scenes and “features” look in the commercial, then the greater the chances that the product may not be in your best interest. If people have to continually stretch the truth to make an impact, did they really have any selling points to begin with?
That’s up to you, the consumer, to decide. Is it worth the $27.98 plus however long it takes to receive the pillow in the mail? Again, that’s for you to decide.
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All of the Bright Light Pillow commercial images are screenshots of a TV commercial currently available on the product’s website. For more product information, please visit the company’s website at www.BrightLightPillow.com.
Bright Light Pillow is a registered trademark.
RellimZone.com is not affiliated with Bright Light Pillow.