The cosmetics firm Avon will come calling on TV, recruiting sales representatives with its first-ever infomercial debuting this weekend.
After its initial appearance on Oxygen on Saturday morning, the half-hour commercial for troubled Avon Products Inc. will be shown repeatedly on Oxygen, Lifetime and USA.
Deborah Norville and financial guru Suze Orman are featured, but the infomercial is dominated by testimonials from women who sell Avon’s products. The company wants to increase its base of 500,000 sales representatives in the United States.
“We saw it as an opportunity because of the times we’re in,” said Geralyn Brieg, president of Avon North America.
Avon announced a restructuring with a freeze on salaries and hiring two months ago. The company sells more than three-quarters of its cosmetics overseas, where sales have been hurt by a stronger dollar.
The project is also an example of the growing acceptance of i nfomercials, once an advertising form reserved for cheesy products.
“We really wanted to explore how to do it in a quality way,” Brieg said, “and I think the image of infomercials as being something of a hard sell is really outdated.”
Brieg said the company was motivated to do something more on television after an appearance by its president on ABC’s “Good Morning America” last November. The TV appearance alone caused a large jump in the number of people calling to inquire about selling Avon products, she said.
She would not pinpoint a target on how many new sales representatives Avon hopes to gain with the infomercial.
“Recruiting is 50 percent of what we focus on at Avon,” she said. “It’s the moral equivalent for a retailer of having more stores open.”
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More