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I’ve noticed a couple of times a recent mini infomercial that, to me as a viewer, is completely over-hyped and goes beyond my level of believability.

It’s for a vacuum cleaner called the GaleForce.

At the start of the presentation, they show a user holding a full dust collection bag from another vacuum cleaner. This user is furiously “pumping” the bag to make the dust fly out (something you’d NEVER do yourself!) in an attempt to provide “proof” that a bag-system is an inferior option.

This scene is shot in “sepia” color tone to attempt to associate that dust bag technology with the olden days… so you don’t perceive it as real and alive and part of your normal environment. It’s an NLP method to assist you, subliminally, in not associating experiences to your current environment.

The company then attempts to prove how good their product is by vacuuming things light materials like pet hair out of a drinking glass! What a joke — since when would any vacuum not cope with such a challenge? They also vacuum smarties/M&M’s off a hard surface — again, hardly a challenge and, to me, proof their vacuum is not worth buying.

They then show their “bagless” system is so good by having to completely empty the dust/direct contents of a large container into a kitchen bin — but before the contents start transferring to the bin, they cut off the scene so you can’t see the dust go everywhere!

On a bag-system, the opening in the bag is only as big as the suction tube — and it usually has a small closing flap so you can quickly shut off the opening and prevent dust from escaping.

On the GaleForce, you enjoy no such feature — a gaping huge opening, as big as the vacuum’s main body, which you’d struggle to then contain dust from escaping when it comes time to empty the vac.

Would you prefer dust being held in with just a small opening a few inches wide, or a huge gaping open cylinder that’s probably five times the width?

So, one of the main “features” of the vac is, to me, completely false and in fact a negative — having that bagless option would cause all sorts of dust and mess!

As for the demonstrations of power that are shown, I reckon the cheapest vac could have performed the same job of getting the materials out of the drinking glasses and the loose objects off the hard surface. Neither were a challenge. Perhaps their only upside was the suction power generated against the bowling ball/lounge table — but I’m not convinced other systems couldn’t do that anyway.

So — two of the three main selling points have been shot down in flames.

And the vac is so good… you get a second vac for free. Bonus? Or Burden?

What kind of viewer believes the demonstrations during the informercial? They’re easily picked apart with very little thought — so the “proof” of the product’s power is disintegrated.

Credibility can help persuade a buyer to respond to your message … but it has to be believable. Seeing as the ad keeps on running, there must be a big enough crowd of hungry buyers to keep up the sales.

I don’t expect to ever have this product on my shopping list! I don’t gather I’ll ever be sent a demo model either!

• A bit sleepy — only got 140 on the Facebook IQ test! #
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