The Cult of the Snuggie

If you’ve never heard of the Snuggie, then you haven’t been watching cable TV. The two-minute commercial for the “blanket with sleeves,” which began airing in September, has been playing nonstop–and not just on struggling channels in the wee hours of the morning. Images of Snuggie-clad folks high-fiving one another at an outdoor sporting event (and looking like, as one blogger put it, members of a “laid-back satanic cult”) have appeared during prime time on such cable stalwarts as ESPN, Comedy Central and CNN, becoming so ubiquitous that everyone from Jay Leno to a gazillion people on YouTube is talking about it. Just Google “Cult of the Snuggie.” (See the top 10 viral videos of 2008.)

The ready-to-wear blanket went so far as to inspire Cameron Cosgrove, an 18-year-old Connecticut native, to post a seven-minute, profanity-laden rant on YouTube. “This is the best way to explain it,” he tells the camera between long drags on a cigarette. “It’s a bathrobe. That is really long. That you wear backwards.”

Scott Boilen, CEO and president of Allstar Marketing Group, the company that makes the cuddly cassock, is familiar with Snuggie haters; he’s seen Cosgrove’s rant. “Publicity is publicity,” he says. “At least people are talking about it.” And evidently people are also buying it, with more than 3 million Snuggies sold and counting.

Like Ginsu knives and the George Foreman grill, the Snuggie has become synonymous with direct-response advertising, the preferred industry parlance for commercials that feature a toll-free number for placing orders. And thanks to the recession, such “as seen on TV” companies are purchasing more airtime for chump change.

“I like to say that we’re getting beachfront property at trailer-park prices,” says A.J. Khubani, founder and CEO of TeleBrands, another popular purveyor of infomercialesque merchandise. He says his company is buying better time slots for nearly 25% less than it paid in 2007. Commercials for TeleBrands products, which include nail clippers for pets (PediPaws), now appear during The O’Reilly Factor, the most popular show on Fox News.

And while profits are down at nationwide retailers like Walgreens and Target, Khubani says the number of TeleBrands products purchased in those stores are “way up,” with TeleBrands’ overall sales in 2008 nearly doubling since 2007. Of course, because such products are often manufactured overseas–the Snuggie, for example, is made in China–prices tend to be more consumer-friendly in a recession.

The Snuggie isn’t the first blanket with sleeves (Slanket, anyone?), nor is it likely to be the last. But if Boilen has his way, the product and its aggressive marketing campaign are here to stay. His company plans to introduce new versions later this year, from the Outdoor Snuggie to the Snuggie for Kids. “We’re hoping this is going to be a brand in the U.S. for a long time to come,” he says. Someone get Cameron Cosgrove another cigarette.

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