The other day Joel and I were watching the Major League Baseball playoffs. There were 3 games on television over the course of the evening, night, and early morning, so we were on the same channel all day. After the final game, we stopped paying attention to what was on and continued doing work in our living room. It had gotten to the hours of infomercials and one in particular caught our attention.
Having watched the first few seconds, I realized that I was not the target audience. I could relate to none of the problems or scenarios, but for some reason I was drawn to the commercial. I don’t know if it was because of the ingenuity of the product or the fact it made me laugh, but it kept my interest. The product I am speaking of is the Cami Secret.
The basic gist of the product, for those of us who are guys, is this: Women in the workplace need to be cognizant of how revealing their tops are. As a result there is often a struggle between “going-out” clothes and “wear to work” clothes. It is expensive to buy different outfits and it can be uncomfortable to wear camisoles (female undershirts). This product is the solution to all of these problems. It is like a small bib that clips to a woman’s bra straps and appears to others to just be a camisole. It can be adjusted to different heights to show off different amounts of skin, depending on circumstance and situation.
One of the major reasons I found this infomercial interesting is because I have always been curious about the effectiveness of infomercials. Many normal or mainstream products I envision sell strongly, such as OxiClean or even the Snuggie, as you can find these products in many stores. However the Slap Chop or Shamwow!, I have my doubts about.
This was the situation I came across when I saw the infomercial for Cami Secret. Not being part of the target market made it even more difficult for me to decide whether this was a viable product or not. Is this something someone would use? What age group is it targeting? Are there actually women watching this channel at this hour after the baseball game? Suffice it to say, I still question this product and its functionality.
For any female reading this, please give me some feedback regarding the product. Also, please don’t view me in a negative light as this ad might be a bit risqué for a class discussion.
On another note, when searching for the infomercial on Youtube, I came across a very funny parody. Keep in mind that the parody is misogynistic in nature, but if you can stomach it, you might get a laugh.
Jordan Jacobson is a senior at Wake Forest University. He is graduating this Spring with a BS in Business and Enterprise Management with minors in both Psychology and Journalism. He is particularly interested in consumer behavior and decision making.
More about the product than the blog itself, there are actually two underlying psychological issues: schedules of reinforcement and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The Cami Secret is actually one of the most psychologically driven products I’ve ever come across. I mean, for a piece of cloth that is smaller than the average handkerchief, the Cami Secret takes care of issues that run so deep as looks and productivity in the workplace. It not only takes care of a woman’s basic needs of clothing and protection but gives her that extra boost up the hierarchy of needs to self-esteem, making her feel more comfortable and more empowered in the workplace. But it doesn’t stop there. The Cami Secret also takes care of that little voice in the back of the woman’s mind that is nagging at her like her mother used to when she was reinforcing that “a woman should be ladylike” back during her younger years. Thus, the Cami Secret is much more than just a cover-up, or handkerchief if you will, for a woman’s upper regions; it is a solution to any issue she has with self-esteem and appeases the schedules of reinforcement that her parents used on her when she was young.
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