HE REALLY HAD AN ART FOR HOW TO COMMUNICATE AND RELATE.

US$204 million on long-form infomercials in the third quarter of 2015, according to research by Kantar Media.

Kives died in late April at the age of 87. Today, Samantha said she sees his most direct legacy in the videos made for the Internet by inventors who, unfortunately, often don’t have time to build up to a punchline or tell an elaborate story before people lose interest and click away.

“(Philip) tells you right upfront what the product is and why you need it,” she said. “On YouTube, you only have 15 or 30 seconds to advertise your product. I think that style of commercial, you’ll see it more and more.”

A YouTube video has the advantage of being free to post, but Altman, the direct marketing consultant, said it’s still hard for serious inventors to avoid television if they want to be successful. If people are going to be convinced they need a new product, they need to see it in action, she said.

“If you’ve invented a new product, no one knows you did it,” Altman said, adding that means no one knows to look for the YouTube video either. “If it lends itself to demonstration, to showing people how it works and what its benefits are, video is the ideal form.”

Alan Ward, a U.K.-based business consultant with experience advising inventors, said all the Internet-marketing and social-media savvy in the world won’t help a lacklustre product. “It’s a tremendously useful tool, but I don’t think it alleviates any of the classic requirements,” he said.

Crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter can be a huge help to inventors who don’t have much cash for marketing, but Ward said it’s very difficult to predict what will be a wild success and what will be a flop.

An invention might have a huge market and the potential to change the world, but if the crowd decides it’s funnier to give US$55,000 to a guy who wants to make potato salad (which actually happened), the potato salad wins.

But even if the crowd decides to pass on funding, direct selling through infomercials proves too expensive and retailers pass on carrying the product, it’s still possible to keep an online store open until the bitter end. That means there’s little to stop inventors from continuing to plow their money into doomed ventures until the collection agencies break down the door.

“In the old days, you had to at least convince some- For now the main distribution channel for the inventor Erica Diamond’s Hadry is the product’s website. one else it was worth doing,” Ward said. “I’ve seen far too many people come to the breaking point and basically bankrupt themselves.”

But Diamond, the inventor of the Hadry, said she thinks today is a better time than ever to be an inventor if you have a quality product. And of course, she believes she does.

She has sent a Hadry to Kim Kardashian and her daughter North West, as well as Oprah Winfrey. With every tweet and blog endorsement, she’s convinced she’s getting closer to seeing one of them wearing one.

“The cream rises to the top,” Diamond said. “I think great products can be seen quicker, easier and cheaper.”