Pitchmen aired its second show for the 2010 season and featured a credit card sleeve by Identity Stronghold. This is really a great product that can save you a big headache if somebody were to steal your credit card number by simply walking past you and scanning a purse or wallet with an RFID device to obtain your credit card data. You likely would never even know that somebody did it, until after the fact.
Putting a simple paper sleeve designed to block RFID over your credit cards can prevent it. Cheap and easy and it really does appear to work!
Inventor of the credit card sleeve, Walt Augustinowicz and owner of ID Stronghold stated during the Pitchmen show that he has about $1 Million bucks into the product and company behind the product.
I think the product is selling at about $5 each but Sully was looking to stick to his $19.95 pricing point and wanted to run a package of 8 credit card sleeves and 2 passport sleeves at $19.95. During the show, Sully ran a direct market ad buy and stated the test went very well.
Again, I think the product appears to really work based on what they showed on the Pitchmen show and if your credit card allows you to wave it in front of a machine when you pay, I think ID Stronghold is a wise buy.
One thing that was a little odd during some research is that I do not see an affiliate program running behind the product for Sully. He always has an affiliate program and campaign running for the products he features on the show and does infomercials for. I couldn’t find a single one.
Another thing Sully does is offer his infomercial products at his Sully Store, but I couldn’t find it listed along the many other products Sully approves and puts in his store.
Google Trends also didn’t show any sight of the product in popular searches this morning like it normally does when products are aired on the show. This could be for a couple reasons, one being that a strong name wasn’t given to the product during the show. They mainly spoke about it as a Credit Card Sleeve and ID Stronghold when generally talking of the product.
Last week, the Hex Light was talked about and it was a clear name for the product. People simply knew what to search for. The same went for the other product on the show, Cold Fire extinguisher.
Next weeks show will bring several more products to the market. ShaveMate is a razor/shaving cream all in one. The other is the Fridge Locker, which is a locking box device you can put food in and lock. (Update: this show never aired as Discovery pulled the series for at least now.)
Jason
Great show last night! I thought they could have come up with a catchier name than “Identity Stronghold” is a little too much to get out, and “stronghold” is a little old-fashioned…
$1 mil into it… wow… could have been an epic fail…
Spike
I liked what they did for the kid even though his invention wasn’t so spectacular. I really can’t see people paying for this the card protection but I guess the info commercial crowd will buy anything (e.g., Snuggies).
Jamie Zoch
@Jason,
Next week should be better! Some “odd” products but they should market pretty well. I agree “stronghold” is a bit old school. For sure they could have come up with a better brand name and I think that is the main reason G T didn’t have the product in it. Might be a reason that it appears Sully isn’t backing it any longer as well, unless they are just running TV ads and putting the main focus on that and not on the net.
Jamie Zoch
@Spike,
If I was the guy that invented it, I may be going directly to the CC companies that offer the unsecured cards. The CC companies could issues the sleeves with their cards for “extra protection” when they send out cards.
Walt Augustinowicz
Hey guys just read your thread. I was the guy in the ID Stronghold piece. I think somewhere along the way there was miscue with the production company. Our product is not called ID Stronghold. Identity Stronghold is the company name. The product is called the “Secure Sleeve”(R). We have been selling it on our site http://www.idstronghold.com
Jamie Zoch
@Walt,
Thanks for stopping by and congrats on being on the show and for your product! Is Sully still marketing Secure Sleeve via infomercials? I was just wondering why he doesn’t have it on his store and I do not see any affiliate programs running by him to sell your product?
Poor Uncle
Hi Jamie,
You seem like a product guy. Care to share with us what products or website you are preparing for the upcoming Christmas season?
Robert Identity Theft Guy
Hi Jamie,
I think this RFID blocking product is amazing. I’d never heard of such a product before and didn’t think blocking was possible.
Apparently similar products (RFID blocking) have been on the market.
I have a passport and at least 1 credit card I am certain have RFID data on it.
Yikes…
Thanks for “talking up” this product here.
Walt
Jamie,
We don’t have an affiliate program in place but sales have been rocking since the show. We made a couple of tweaks to the commercial and it just started airing again on this Monday. We will slowly be ramping up volume of the commericial as we key on on the proper age groups etc. We also have a test version running with Jennifer Crawford as well.