How do they get people to so convincingly testify in those infomercials?
Some (especially the latest ab gadget or those get-rich-quick products) are scams and the thing that gets me most is how they get these people to so convincingly testify. Some infomercials even state that their testifiers are not compensated.
It boggles me in three levels:
You KNOW the product can never work as advertised.
Home-based businesses. After researching some of the home-based business on the net and discovering how their scams actually work and reading unfortunate purchasers’ stories you know it is not as simple as “making $12,000 for a few hours of work in my spare time in my underwear”.
The latest ab gadget. Losing weight involves diet and much more significant exercise, cardio, etc. than just crunching the damn machine 5 minutes a day.
This applies more to products that are brand new in the market (I can’t think of any specific ones at this moment!). But how do they find the people who have used a certain product it for X amount of months or years when you know that this is the first time it is being advertised?
Now, I’m aware of such things as test markets but how do they market to those test markets? And how do they find people who had success with their products when it clearly cannot work and convince these people to testify for their product?
What’s in it for these testifiers? Is it a lot of money? Aren’t they afraid their friends and family might see their testimony?
So how do they get these testimonies? Are they all lying and/or are paid actors despite the disclaimers that they are not?
Remember that any government regulatory agency which supervises infomercials will work in a reactive mode – that is, they leap into action only when enough folks complain about the false ads. For a late-night low-profile infomercial, this could be months or years after the product has started advertising, during which the manufacturer could have made millions off of gullible suckers. And if you’re an infomercial-dealer who’s already raked in $50 million for selling the Waddle-matic, do you think a $5 million fine for false advertising will deter you any?
A good example of this can be seen in the Penn & Teller: Bullshit! episode on weight-loss fitness schemes and home exercise equipment.
A friend of mine was one of the inventors of a product that they marketed, among other places, on the Home Shopping Network. It was actually an excellent product but in the end the one competing product in the maketplace was the one that won the marketing war and now can be found in millions of homes.
Anyway, they had the product on HSN a few months before and this was the second set of appearences. Since I had the product and loved it, I tried to call to do a true testimonial. They wouldn’t let me on because I couldn’t supply a user number or something to prove that I got mine at HSN (I was a beta tester and got a free one.)
In the case of HSN, they only allow testimonials from people who actually bought the product from them and didn’t return it. I suppose that there’s nothing stopping someone from pulling a prank anyway and saying that the product was shit. There are so many HSN groupies out there though that get a thrill from “being on TV” that they don’t need actors.
The bimbo hostess that was on with my friend did indeed lie and say that she had one and her husband loved it. Also they said something like they only had 74 in stock so you better order quickly. In actuality they would have sold as many as people wanted.
Remember the device which electro-stimulated your muscles so you could get a good workout? I remember an article where they talked to one of the people who gave a testimony. She was like a fitness instructor or something, so she was in great shape to begin with. When they took her before picture, she relaxed her abs so you couldn’t see the definition. After she used the device for x-number of days, they took the after picture and she tensed her ab muscles. So it might look like she got all this definition in that amount of time from using the product, when really it’s just from tensing the muscles. What they didn’t tell you is that she also did her normal workout (with weights) during the time she used the device. And furthermore, she had great abs to start with. If you listen to her testimony in the ad, she doesn’t lie. Everything she says is true, although she doesn’t tell you everything.
Many times people giving testimonies have lead in statements like “I feel,” “I think,” or “In my opinion.” That changes what they’re saying from fact to opinion and makes proving a lie almost imposible.
In marginally more honest ads, you might see them referred to as ‘models’ or ‘TV personality’. That really means actor, who was paid to say what they said.
Often these are not professional actors, members of Equity, SAG, etc., but just someone who is willing to say what the producer wants for payment. Maybe an actor in a local theatre group or something.
Occasionally they will be a family member of the maker, or an employee of their company. You will see them identified as “an accountant”, without ever saying that the accounts they manage are those of the company producing the infomercial.