New Dimensions Fitness equipment inventor

Dean Tornabene is the co-inventor with Charles Perez of some of the best-selling gadgets ever pushed by infomercials, including the AB Rocker and the Bun and Thigh Sculptor. His inventions over the past four years have generated more than $300 million in retail sales and direct-response TV combined.

Tornabene, a former Mr. America who has established himself as a health and fitness guru, has quite an impressive background, but his inventing skills go far beyond simply cashing in on his good looks and name recognition. Tornabene also knows how to create a distinctive product-one with the potential to find space on retail shelves and become a smash hit, not just another deadbeat collecting dust in a corner of Wal-Mart.

Tornabene's first inventions came about when he was a teenager growing up in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. His family couldn't afford expensive fitness equipment, so Tornabene created his own products. At 22, Tornabene moved to Los Angeles and gradually realized that the general public needed more than just exercise to keep in top shape. Hence, Herbal Technologies Inc. was born, a company that sells two of the most popular herbal supplements, Fat Fighting System and Metasystem.

Over the past four years, Tornabene has again turned to fitness equipment, co-inventing the AB Rocker and the Bun and Thigh Sculptor. All have been featured on direct-response TV, and now he's taking yet another stride forward: In 1999, Tornabene signed an exclusive marketing and sales contract with National Boston Medical Inc., parent company of Infotopia, to produce a minimum of 12 new infomercial products over the next four years. The newest product to be featured is the Body Rocker.

Daniel Hoyng, president, chairman and CEO of Infotopia, notes the significance of the deal: "Retail sales are even more important than direct-response sales. To keep a product on retailers' shelves, it's important to have a branding strategy that consumers can recognize."

Don Debelak (dondebelak@uswest.net) is a new-business marketing consultant who has been introducing new products for more than 20 years. He is the author of Bringing Your Product to Market (John Wiley & Sons, $19.95, 800-225-5945).

Stand Out

"OK," you're saying, "so how did Tornabene doit?" First and foremost, you need to make sure your product isdifferent from all the other products out there that are similar toyours. The market is just too demanding. "[I like] to think inother dimensions and use a perspective that's intangible,"says Tornabene. In other words, he looks for products thataren't delivering what consumers want-then he focuses on thatneed and tries to visualize how the product should be designed.

Consider the thought process behind the AB Rocker. Tornabenefirst identified the problem: The average American doesn'treally enjoy exercising and usually stops his or her regime after ashort period of time. He then looked beyond his extensive knowledgeof fitness products to try to come up with a product to solve thatproblem.

"I started to realize that the motion people find mostcomforting is rocking," says Tornabene. "That's why Idecided to make rocker technology the basis of my fitness products.The market's previous top-selling abdominal exercising productwas the AB Roller, a major hit on direct-response TV. For fiveyears, no one was able to come up with a better solution."Then Tornabene invented the AB Rocker.

Your challenges as an inventor go beyond thinking in otherdimensions, however. When creating their products, many inventorsexperience the frustration of trying to coordinate three verydifferent things: the look, the vision and the cost of the product.You need to have a look that sets the product apart, a functionthat's important to consumers and a price that consumers willfeel is a good value.

Inventors frequently fall short in at least one of these areas.The most effective way to avoid this problem is to collaborate withanother person. Tornabene, for example, works closely with Perez, amechanical wizard who turns vision into reality by creatingprototypes. The two of them own a shop in Venice, California.

After experiencing the wonderful world of marketing, you'lltypically find that the best collaborative partnership is between aperson with the vision to create a new idea and a person who candeliver a quality product. The skills of the two people complementeach other, and their different perspectives-one looking to givecustomers the benefits they want, the other trying to build aquality product at a low cost-lead to the best products.

Tornabene is a well-known inventor with a track record ofsuccessful products-but he didn't start off that way. (Rememberthat small-town story we mentioned earlier? That's where we allbegin.) What took him to the top was his ability to consideralternatives to existing products. You'll have a better chanceof duplicating Tornabene's success if you can learn to thinkoutside of the proverbial box when creating your own winninginventions.

Shelf Life

The direct-response industry has changed dramatically over thepast five years. Direct-response ads were originally used togenerate direct sales, and marketers only moved their products toretail during and after their direct-response run. Today, marketersuse direct-response TV to supercharge retail sales.

Consider the example of Roto Zip Tool Corp., which has sold itsRoto Zip tool (looks like a power drill but acts like a router) for25 years via building supply stores like Menards and Home Depot.When the company ran an infomercial for three months, retail salesincreased more than 50 percent, cites Response magazine. Thenthere's The Bacon Wave, a microwave-safe bacon cooker by EmsonInc. In its initial TV run, the Bacon Wave sold 250,000 units-thenit hit the retail shelves and sold 1.5 million units in just sixmonths. And don't forget The Contour Cloud Pillow, whichgarnered $18 million during its six-month TV campaign and went onto sell a healthy $6 million more its first year in retail.

Retailers have learned that many people who are reluctant to buya product off a direct-response ad are more than happy to buy itwhen they see it on store shelves. Plus, most retail products selllike hot-cakes once they're seen on TV.

Stay Tuned

Infomercials and direct-response TV ads have become some of themost successful routes for inventors to get their products toleading retailers. These retailers often use the "As Seen onTV" marketing technique to push products, as the merchandisecan keep selling long after its last TV spot. Best of all forinventors, the infomercial promoters usually finance most-if notall-of the cost of producing and marketing the idea. To stay on topof the latest developments in the direct-response industry,subscribe to Response magazine (http://www.responsemag.com), whichcovers multichannel direct advertising (including infomercials),one- to two-minute direct commercials and direct-response Webadvertising. Annual subscriptions are $39.

Beam Me Up

Many companies can help you take your product ontodirect-response TV and then into retail stores. Here's a fewyou may want to try:

• Emson Inc.: (a division of E. Mishan & Sons) 2350Fifth Ave., #800, New York, NY 10001, (212) 689-9094, http://www.emsontv.com

• hawthorne direct inc.: 300 N. 16th St., P.O. Box 1366,Fairfield, IA 52556, (515) 472-3800, http://www.hawthornedirect.com

• Infotopia: (a division of National Boston Medical Inc.)43 Taunton Green, Taunton, MA 02780, (508) 884-8820, http://www.nbmedical.com

• Retail Distributors LLC: 150 E. Palmetto Park Rd., #700,Boca Raton, FL 33432, (561) 391-2600, http://www.dtrttv.com

• Telebrands: 81 Two Bridges Rd., Fairfield, NJ 07004,(201) 244-0400, http://www.telebrands.com

• TriStar Products Inc.: 4 Century Dr., Parsippany, NJ07054, (973) 683-1000, http://www.tristarproductsinc.com