No. 4

Kent & Spiegel Direct

Business: Electronic marketing

Location: Culver City

Percentage Growth: 285

To succeed in the infomercial industry, a business must excel in both retail and show business. Kent & Spiegel has done well in both areas.

Infomercial producers not only advertise their products, but take a financial interest in them as well. Accordingly, the success of the marketing company depends on how much it sells, primarily to television viewers. So the company must choose products wisely, based on their innate appeal and marketability.

“We are a cradle-to-grave business. We will see if a product is salesworthy or not, we will put it on the air, and then move it on to retail,” said Laura Fox, the firm’s vice president of electronic marketing.

Choosing well has been the key to Kent & Spiegel’s ascent in the infomercial world. Two of its products Abflex, an exercise device to strengthen the abdominal muscles, and the Sobawaka pillow, a buckwheat pillow intended to aid spinal problems are big sellers (although the company declines to release either sales figures or its exact ownership stake in either product).

The firm has “done an excellent job of picking products that have widespread appeal, both on television and in retail outlets,” said John Kogler, publisher of the Jordan Whitney Greensheet, an Orange County trade weekly that tracks the infomercial industry.

“Once you have picked a product that is appealing, you have to produce a show that is entertaining enough to keep people watching and subsequently induce them to order it, and they have done that as well,” he said.

Steve Dworman, publisher of the Infomercial Marketing Report, says Kent & Spiegel deserves credit for strong management, because it continues to grow at a time when other infomercial producers are struggling.

“There are only a handful of infomercial firms that are solvent at this point,” he said. “The industry is capital-intensive. The problem is that the television medium is like a commodity, and prices have gotten so high that it is tough to have a hit.”

Morris Newman