Snuggle Up to the Right Strategy

I don’t know if any of you in the US have seen the infomercial on TV for Snuggies—“the blanket with sleeves!”—but it’s a pretty entertaining video that features some great marketing gems:

“Blankets are OK but they can slip and slide, plus your hands are trapped inside.”

Infomercials have a way of drawing you in and getting stuck in your head- I told people in the office about the Snuggie because I figured they’d get a kick out of it, and hey, with the holidays coming up, what better gift is there than a fetching blanket that you can wear as an outfit?

Some people in our office went online to find the site- we guessed what we thought would be a logical domain and visited “snuggie.com.” Well, it turns out that the makers of Snuggie don’t own snuggie.com.

I guess we’re not alone in guessing incorrectly or forgetting the address. A month ago, snuggie.com received almost no visitors. In the last month, snuggie.com has received an estimated 7,400 new visitors, which means the makers of Snuggie are missing out on providing scores of customers – about 1 out of every 5 – with an easy way to buy slip-proof, fleecy warmth.

The whole point of infomercials is to make something catchy enough that people remember a product days after they’ve seen the advertisement. Many marketers know they have one shot, and they should know by now that the follow-up to making a catchy sales pitch is to make the product accessible to those who view their ad by providing a Web address that is easy to remember and intuitive to consumers that are interested in the product. After all, people will forget the domain name or the 800 number as quickly as they got sucked in to the commercial in the first place.

To check out the real Snuggie (it’s worth it, trust me), go to: getsnuggie.com.

They don’t own getsnuggies.com (with an “s” at the end) either – this domain attracted about 5,200 visitors in the last month.