The year 2008 marked the time the Snuggie warmed our bodies — and our hearts.And besides the Snuggie, many infomercial products have been in high demand lately. The ShamWow, Topsy Turvy and Bumpits have all had considerable success.The Snuggie sold more 4 million units in the U.S. alone. Similarly, other products have had months-long television ad campaigns.Emily Erickson, mass communication professor, said these “As Seen on TV” products are successful because of their simple, straightforward advertising.”A classic formula for a great ad is unexpectedness and incompleteness,” Erickson said. “Like a good story, the ad has a twist and it makes you work just a little bit to process it, which engages you.”Most infomercial ads run on late-night programming, but its biggest success is being played thousands of times daily on Web sites like YouTube. Erickson said these ads don’t even have to run on television often to be successful.”From what I can tell, most people have seen these online — which means the ShamWow and Snuggie have turned into a cultural trend without even having to spend much on media placement,” Erickson said. “It’s pretty sweet. The advertisers hit the viral marketing jackpot.” Erickson said the ads for products like the Snuggie and the ShamWow are tongue-in-cheek, over-the-top parodies of the classic late-night TV commercials.”They dipped into the old toolbox of informational advertising, where you expound upon a product’s merits, and added a winking ‘we-all-know-this-is-absurd’ tone,” Erickson said. “That’s perfect for the Gen Y’s and Millennials, who have been bombarded with advertising since they were in diapers.”Jennifer Macha, mass communication professor, said even though people buy these products because they think they are tongue-in-cheek or funny, these products also reach a demographic that genuinely use the products.”You’re hitting an older generation that goes, ‘Wow, that’s really useful. I can wear that at my kids’ soccer game,'” she said. “But then younger generations think it’s a spoof, and it’s funny and something you’d buy as a joke for your friends. And all of that increases sales — they’re getting the most bang for their buck without doing much.”Because products like the Snuggie create new product lines, the advertising needs to thoroughly explain its use.”It’s a new category in and of itself, so you really have to get across the features and the benefits and the selling point of it,” Macha said. “In the commercial, it’s very obvious what it does because it presents you with, ‘Here’s a problem, the Snuggie is the solution.'”Using late-night infomercials is also an effective way to reach audiences, she said.”You’re advertising to people at night, so there’s usually people sitting on a couch or in a recliner who may not want to get up and turn up the heat or put on a blanket, so the Snuggie seems like a decent fit,” she said.——Contact Ben Bourgeois at [email protected]