Customer Reviews

"This business has legs": How I Used Infomercial Marketing to Create the$100,000,000 ThighMaster Craze

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Peter Biehler has written not only a sensational book about infomercials, he has unwittingly written an entertaining and profound book on motivation and persevering to attain one's goals. He provides an indepth understanding of the key components of how to put together an infomerical and succeed. It was more like reading an engrossing novel than the uusal dreary business books.

Overall the book is pretty informative and interesting, although it did leave some questions in my head:

1. The cover says "$100,000,000 craze" but he never actually goes into how much money he walked away with in profit after it was all said and done. I was really looking forward to getting detailed numbers on how much he spent and how much he made total but never got it.

2. Also, Im still kind of confused about why he left the company and what stage the business was in when he left. Were they still running infomercials? Were they still breaking even on them to support retail sales?

3. He said the company went bankrupt after he left and he doesn't know why. I would think he would have some kind of an idea of why, was the product/fad cycle just over? Or does he think it was being managed poorly?

Good read, I recommend it to anyone interested in marketing, particularly direct-response and infomercials.

Even though the book is somewhat dated, it gives great insight as to the length and price it takes to get a product to market. It also explains how the system works. I wish I had read the book before I had my product made. I probably wouldn't have a warehouse full of pieces I can't sell. Very much worth reading if you're thinking of going it alone.

Not just a look at the world of infomercial marketing, but an honest peek at the characters that populate this industry. The treatment is creative -- a tongue-in-cheek look at a world that is completely different than the one I market in from day to day.

This is an excellent (and well-written!) case study of bringing a popular product to market with infomercial marketing. I liked it so much I read it cover to cover, which is rare for me. I am recommending it to all my students at copywriting university.

Emphasis on marketing, typical business production/legal issues, plus very motivating on persistence while being an entrepreneur.
I liked the testing details, copywriting and media buy numbers.. very eye-opening to me, and extremely insightful.

This is a fun book about the business behind the ThighMaster (yes, the Suzanne Somers-pitched infomercial product). It is breezy and entertaining to read, but also provides an interesting overview of the infomercial industry. I was inspired by this firsthand account of someone noticing a market (infomercials were new in the 90's when this was written), taking the idea and running with it. I loved how Peter came from film school and the entertainment industry. Yet another example of how art and business mix! I heard about this gem of a book from another good mind-stretching book, Tim Ferriss' "4-Hour Workweek".

If you like reading these real-life business stories, you will also like Rebecca Mathias' "Mothers' Work" (about the people behind Pea in the Pod, Maternity Works and really the creation of the maternity business fashion line) and Fred DeLuca's "Start Small, Finish Big" (about the Subway sandwich franchise).

I found this a fascinating look inside the world of marketing and infomercials, as well as a view of the author's experience turning a utilitarian product into something sexy and wanted by millions.

Peter Bieler does a masterful job of entertaining the reader while exposing us to the fascinating story of the ThighMaster. The ThighMaster is on most industry experts' top 10 list of most impactful infomercial products of all-time, and the back story makes for a book that you'll have trouble putting down.

The story is old news, as this book was published in 1996, and the ThighMaster craze took place years before that, but it still remains one of the best infomercial business biographies currently available.

I got this book based on a recommendation from another book (The 4 hour Work Week - which is excellent). The description of how the industry developed as well as what they had to go through to make the Thigh Master successful was great. It's an easy read, entertaining and keep you involved in the story. It also gave you insight into obstacles that I never would have even considered.

I recommend it to anyone who's in retail businesses and trying to mass market a product or products.

The book goes from staking out the county fairs for ideas to corporate takeover attempts. The section of selecting a product shows that no one is completely right 100% of the time.