ONE of the most memorable, and
parodied, of current infomercials is for the Snuggie, a blanket with
sleeves whose users resemble converts to a cozy cult.
Jay Leno mocked the Snuggie in a monologue (“Why don’t you just put your robe on backwards?”), as did
Ellen DeGeneres on her syndicated show (“They should throw in a pointed hat so you can look like a wizard.”)
On CNN recently, a segment on the Snuggie — four million of which
have sold since it began advertising in October — said it “has spawned
all sorts of online imitators” and later mentioned the Slanket as one
“of the other versions of the Snuggie out there.”
But it turns out that the Snuggie is actually the imitator.
The Slanket, another blanket with sleeves, predates the Snuggie by more than two years.
Gary Clegg said it began in 1998, when he was a freshman at the
University of Maine
in Orono and living in a chilly dormitory. He cut a hole in his
sleeping bag because his TV remote wouldn’t work through the fabric,
and subsequently asked his mother to sew a sleeve onto it, he said. Mr.
Clegg added a second sleeve and otherwise refined the design in the
ensuing years. He gave the appendaged blankets as gifts to friends, and
finally, with an investment from his brother, Jeff, mass-produced them
and started selling them on
Slanket.com in early 2006.
In 2007, the Slanket was picked up both by the QVC network, where
Mr. Clegg appears regularly to pitch it, and by Skymall, the catalog
tucked into airplane seat pockets. In 2008, Slanket revenue topped $4
million.
•
A snowboarder who has competed professionally, Mr. Clegg, 29, grows
a scruffy beard between QVC appearances and has a laid-back,
surfer-dude attitude, reflected in the Slanket’s motto: “Spread the
Warmth.” But the Snuggie leaves him cold; he calls it a “cheap
knockoff” that “undermines the integrity” of his Slanket.
With similar products bound to appear soon and a lesser-known
sleeved blanket — the Freedom Blanket — predating Mr. Clegg’s, this
throwdown of the throws suggests that it is not always the first one to
market who wins but the one with the most aggressive marketing plan.
Although some media outlets and bloggers mistakenly describe the
Snuggie as the trailblazer, Scott Boilen, 42, president and chief
executive of the Allstar Marketing Group, which makes the Snuggie,
makes no such claims.
“We had seen products like these in catalogs for a while — even
before the Slanket came out, I think,” said Mr. Boilen, whose company
also markets infomercial products like Debbie Meyer GreenBags, Aqua
Globes plant waterers and Topsy Turvy tomato planters. “And we thought
if we could put a clever commercial behind it and offer it at a better
value price, then people would buy it.”
Competition, he said, is a marketplace inevitability.
“We would all be in not-great shape if there was still just one car company,” Mr. Boilen said.
In October, the company started showing the two-minute infomercial,
where Snuggie wearers read, knit and eat popcorn, while a
Snuggies-ensconced family cheers in the stands at a football game.
Allstar bought more than $10 million in television spots, which offer
the Snuggie for $19.95. (The Slanket — larger and made from
considerably thicker fleece — costs $44.95.)The ad, by Blue Moon
Studios, is intentionally over the top, Mr. Boilen said.
“We were definitely in on the joke,” he said. “Do we expect a family to wear these to a football game? No.”
Hundreds of videos on
YouTube parody the ad, with the most popular garnering more than a million views.
“Certain products transcend advertising and become an indelible part of popular culture,” Mr. Boilen said.
The general rule for direct-response campaigns is that companies
lose money while the product is offered exclusively through
infomercials but turn a profit after it appears — As Seen on TV! — in
stores, but Mr. Boilen said the Snuggie was profitable before it hit
shelves.
Walgreens
and Bed, Bath & Beyond now carry it (retail price: $14.99), and Mr.
Boilen said he expected that “every major retailer” would stock it by
the fall.
At Slanket, Mr. Clegg said he also had retailers lined up but declined to name them.
Mr. Clegg said he would not pursue legal action against Snuggie
because when he approached patent lawyers while developing the Slanket,
he was told a design patent for it would not be feasible.
Clifford A. Ulrich, a New York patent lawyer with the intellectual
property firm Kenyon & Kenyon, whose knowledge of the products
before he was reached for comment was limited to seeing the Snuggie
commercial, said securing patents for such items would be “an uphill
battle.”
Mr. Leno’s quip about the products looking like bathrobes worn
backward, Mr. Ulrich said, actually resonates legally: because there
are many products that are shapeless garments with sleeves, like
hospital gowns or religious vestments, and because the sleeved blankets
are neither made from innovative materials nor have complicated moving
parts, there is little that is proprietary about them from a design
standpoint.
Besides, Snuggie apparently has been good for Mr. Clegg, who
projects that Slanket’s revenue of $4.2 million in 2008 will increase
to as much as $9 million in 2009.
“Their infomercial is raising general awareness about the product,”
said Mr. Clegg, adding that some consumers end up cozying up to his
costlier, higher-quality offering. “There’s Cadillac, and there’s
Hyundai,” he said.
Meanwhile, Sean Iannuzzi, 34, finds it ironic that Mr. Clegg is
taking umbrage with the Snuggie because he was similarly miffed when
the Slanket, in his opinion, stole his idea. In April 2005, eight
months before Slanket.com went live, Mr. Iannuzzi and his wife started
selling their fleece-sleeved Freedom Blanket on
freedomblanket.com, where it is currently available for $24.99.
•
Ms. Iannuzzi makes the blankets herself in their home in Palmyra,
N.J., and the couple have sold almost 13,000, even though they never
advertised or sold them through online or bricks-and-mortar merchants.
Because of that low profile, Mr. Clegg maintains that he learned about
the Freedom Blanket only after he had begun manufacturing the Slanket —
but before his Web site went live — and he still thinks of the
product’s origin as being in his chilly dorm room.
“I would never go around saying that I came up with something if it
wasn’t true,” Mr. Clegg said. “I would have no right to be annoyed with
the Snuggie people if that was the case.”
It all leaves Mr. Iannuzzi, who buys his fleece in bulk, feeling
fleeced himself. He was watching TV with his young daughter when she
first saw the Snuggie commercial.
“My daughter sees it and says, ‘That’s the blanket that mommy
makes,’ ” Mr. Iannuzzi said. “As a father, I have to explain to my kid
that that’s how America works.”
<nyt_update_bottom>
</nyt_update_bottom>
</nyt_text>
