ERA Awards for Best Infomercials of 2007

Once again the Electronic Retailing Association (ERA) has presented its ERA Awards for the “best” infomercials of the year. (Check out my post on the 2006 ERA Awards.) So put on your tuxedo and get ready for 2007’s nominees.

In the most important category of Best Long Form Infomercial, the winner is…the boring-as-hell Sheer Cover infomercial from Guthy-Renker.

In the very popular category of Best Celebrity presenter, the nominees are…

Jack LaLanne for Power Juicer Pro

Victoria Principal for Principal Secret

Leeza Gibbons for Sheer Cover

And the winner is…Leeza Gibbons for the boring-as-hell Sheer Cover infomercial. I would have thought that Jack LaLanne’s vocal talents alone would have gotten him the prize.

Last year the award for Best Short Form infomercial went to Proactiv Solution, but this year the ERA Awards decided to go in a bold new direction by presenting the award to…Proactiv Solution.

Last year I noted that of the five nominations for Best Male Presenter two went to David Oreck and two went to Jake “Body by Jake” Steinfeld. This year, however, the category has three nominations: Two of which went to David Oreck and one of which went to Jack Steinfeld. So it is totally different. David Oreck won the award by the way, probably because Jake Steinfeld won it last year, so they wanted a little variety.

Overall, the two themes that emerged from the 2007 ERA Awards were “Boring as Hell” and “Same Old Crap as Last Year.”

If you take a look at the list of winners and nominees, you will see that there are many different awards, most likely so that almost everyone can end up with a prize and not too many people will leave with their feelings hurt. Even the commercial for Beavis and Butthead’s “Living Without Fear” won an award for “Best Short Form Intellectual Property”—perhaps the only time the word “Intellectual” has ever been associated with Beavis and Butthead.

Once again I personally boycotted this year’s ERA Awards ceremony—this time in protest that in the “Best Long Form Show Produced in Latin America” category the infomercials for Karakol Kream and Knutric were not even nominated! It’s an outrage, an outrage I tell you!