Multimedia Sales Approach Good And Bad
Avi Sivan, a former Israeli commando and stunt man, gives new meaning to the expression “media blitz.” Through an aggressive and expensive combination of magazine advertising, infomercials and direct mail, Sivan has created a marketing machine for his personal-care products, which are sold under the “IGIA” brand.
“His simultaneous multimedia push is unusual,” said John Kogler, founder of Jordan Whitney Inc., which monitors the billion-dollar-plus infomercial industry. “I think it’s unique.”
Kogler’s Southern California-based firm publishes several direct-response television reports and newsletters. For the week ending Sept. 27, he said IGIA’s hair-removal system ranked third on Jordan Whitney’s list of top-15 direct-response ads. IGIA’s blemish remover ranked 11th on the same list.
Kogler said Sivan takes advantage of the fact that the infomercial industry “has become a lot more dependent on retail” to sell a variety of consumer products. Many consumers who are reluctant to give their credit-card numbers over the phone may want products they’ve seen demonstrated on TV but prefer to buy them in stores. “A product that gets into stores because of TV will sell 6 to 10 times as much in the retail stores as it does on TV,” explained Kogler.
Although Tactica’s intense marketing campaigns drive sales, they also create customer-service problems, including late deliveries and slow refunds. Last Christmas, the Manhattan-based company fell way behind on deliveries, prompting consumers to file hundreds of complaints.
Recently in New York City alone, more than 500 complaints were still listed in the Better Business Bureau’s computer system. However, a bureau spokesman said only 18 complaints were still unresolved according to his records.
Sivan said every complaint is being taken care of, and everyone whose “Active Air Advanced Beauty System” was delayed was sent $20 worth of face cream as an apology. “We looked at it as good trouble,” said Sivan. “We were overwhelmed with orders for that product.”
Sivan, 34, an intense entrepreneur, said he learned how to market personal-care products to women when he worked for EPI Products USA, the ill-fated Santa Monica-based company that grew to $200 million in sales before it filed for bankruptcy in 1990 amid legal troubles. Its product, Epilady, a hair-removal product invented on a kibbutz in Israel, was infamous for painfully removing hair, but it still sold by the thousands.
Sivan worked with and was once engaged to one of the Krok sisters, who ran the company with their father, South African businessman Solomon Krok. Determined to learn from Epilady’s mistakes, Sivan found a British inventor who developed a less-painful tweezing method. The IGIA hair-removal system sells for $120. “It’s a huge success in the department stores,” said Orly Zoran, who worked with Sivan at EPI Products and now handles sales and marketing for IGIA products.
Zoran, who specializes in launching and marketing new consumer products, said thousands of beauty-magazine ads and huge TV budgets make Sivan’s hair-removal product a hit. Sales also skyrocketed after Sivan spent more than $2 million on slick ads inserted into a department store’s monthly statements. “It’s my bestseller,” confirmed the buyer for a major East Coast department-store chain, who asked not to be identified. “It’s in every single fashion magazine and on television. That business is on fire.”
Sivan said he’s sold 800,000 units and has another 300,000 on back order. One retail industry expert credits Sivan with “rejuvenating the whole hair-removal industry.”
xxxx