The Jersey Boys Split… and, AJ and the Pitchmen

I was always a dreamer and wanted to do my own thing, and in 1988, I did just that. I left the small agency I worked at to pursue life as an entrepreneur. I didn’t know a damned thing about running a business, but I knew in my heart it was time to move on. AJ felt bad, but it wasn’t like I was dying or anything. We still continued to hang out, dinners with the girlfriends, and weekends at the Jersey shore, (no, not with those nitwits from that wretched reality show. Just thought I had to clear that up.) Then, the “girlfriends” became the “wives” and we attended each others weddings.

I really wanted to continue to work with my pal and decided it was time to ask for some advertising projects. I knew that was taking work from my old boss, but my wife and I had to eat, plain and simple. AJ gave me a few projects that turned out pretty nicely and it was fun working with the nerdy kid from Lincoln Park, New Jersey, again.

Finally it came a time where I asked for his business – all of it. I knew TeleBrands was growing by leaps and bounds and I had the creativity and the drive to make it work. I mean, I was there from the beginning with him – painful nubby sandals and all. But so was my old boss, Don. And to AJ’s credit as a human being, he just couldn’t hurt Don, and told me he had to stick with him. It was tough for me, but I respected AJ for the integrity he showed.

Then something happened that happens to so many friends – we got very busy with our own little worlds and started losing touch. I’d say a solid ten to 15 years went by in the blink of an eye and we hadn’t talked. Oh, I constantly saw all the wacky stuff he was peddling on TV, and wanted to call, but you know how us humans are – lazy and forgetful.

Flash forward to about a year ago. I’m not sure how, but AJ had my email address and put me on his personal email list and sent me footage from all the television shows he’d been appearing on. His new sensation the Ped Egg had sold 30 million units and every morning show was giving it rave reviews. That’s when I started thinking that there just has to be something I could do for him – a way to reconnect.

Then it hit me – hard…

“Dad, come here… quick!!!” my daughter yelled as she was pointing at the TV. “there’s the guy you know dad!”

“Holy crap, it’s AJ,” I yelled. He was on a new Discovery Channel show called Pitchmen, with English Anthony Sullivan, and the always friggin’ annoying, Billy Mays.

“He’s been on this show a bunch of times,” my son said. “Is he really the Infomercial King?”

“No, he’s the goof ball I hung out with at your grandparents shore house.”

“OH MY GOD DAD… YOU’RE KIDDING US!!! The guy is amazing! Dad… WHY DON’T YOU CALL HIM?!”

Good question. Why wouldn’t I call my old pal? Well, I didn’t want to just call out of the blue and say, “Hey man, now that you’re all rich and a TV star, can we hang out again?” I felt I had to bring something to the table. I thought if I came up with some good marketing ideas, I know he’d listen.

AJ Khubani ALWAYS has time for a good idea.

It was time. The kids were right. Time to reconnect with the King. No, not Elvis, dammit… AJ. Come on, stick with me here. Jeez.

Next Blog Post…

The Jersey Boys Reunite and a Blog is Born!

See ya there,

Tommy Z.

TeleBrands The BLOG

Seeing the World Through Amber Colored Glasses

Holy good God, my pal AJ was making a successful go of this crazy direct response business. We continually ran ads for all kinds of stuff – some did well, some did terribly, but he learned from each experience. Like those damned sandals with the nubs. I think the Marque de sade was the original inventor, as every step in those things made you wince in anguish. But people loved them and bought them like crazy, and very soon, knock-offs appeared all over the place.

From day one, AJ was an incredibly persistent dude who never listened to people who said words like “don’t” and “can’t.” He sought out products from across the globe and tested them at different price points and in various publications, and media venues. He was a one-man company, packing orders in his house, while making daily trips to the post office. After only a couple of years, the business grew to a point where he needed to rent an office and hire a staff. He sunk the profits he made into new product and employees and was on a mission to reach his goal. I remember him saying that he was only one “BIG” product away – the one that would catapult his success. And then, in 1987, like a gift from the heavens, it came… and it was called: AMBERVISION.

“Hey Tommy, check these glasses out were going to test,” AJ said to me as I was wrought with various deadlines.

As I looked up from my drafting table (a few years before Macs became the standard), I noticed that the lenses were orange, but knew that Halloween was a long ways away. “Those look friggin nuts,” I said.” But so was the radio, sandals, and just about everything else he peddled.

“Put them on,” he urged, while shoving them in my face.

“Holy crap,” I blurted, as the room got ten thousand percent brighter.

“Whatta you think?”

“I think the Russians just nuked New Jersey,” was my honest opinion. But I knew that AJ had a knack for finding winners and I trusted that the sunglasses that made everything brighter, would most likely be his next big hit.

Understatement of the year.

15 million pair were sold, and Telebrands had entered a new realm. And the real key was selling through retail, which no real direct response company had ever done. Hermans Sporting Goods took them on in their 100 plus retail stores and the strong sales surprised everyone. Then, the natural progression was television, as the future Infomercial King was seriously finding his niche. The commercials were a hit, and everyone was donning the screaming orange, aviator style eye wear. And most importantly, the original AS SEEN ON TV products had arrived!

I really can’t explain it, but AJ has always had this innate sense for knowing what is going to work. Yeah, he’ll get all modest and tell you that 90% of all products tested fail, yada, yada, yada, But the guy has a success rate like no one else in the business. Ambervision was the catalyst for new ways of getting the products into the publics hands, and the company reaped the rewards.

Next Blog Post…

The Jersey Boys Split and AJ Stars on Dicovery Channel’s Pitchmen!

Be there,

Tommy Z.

TeleBrands The BLOG

Part 1: The Original Jersey Boys

26 years ago I was the art director in a small retail ad agency in northern New Jersey, you know… Sopranos Country. While I had never seen anybody actually get whacked, I am half Italian on my mother’s side, so that was always good enough for a little drama in my life. Yeah, I was just a dumbass kid, but I made the owner laugh a lot, so he kept me around. I had high ideals and dreams of making it big one day, and that’s what has always kept me going.

One day this young and kind of nerdy kid walked into the office – his name was AJ, a local from the next town over, and he was hoisting a box full of crap. Okay, I’m speaking figuratively – it was a box full of crappy gadgets and he wanted to sell them via direct response: ads, mailers, and free-standing inserts in the Sunday newspapers. As he pulled each item from the box, we kind of snickered under our breath, knowing that this kid was going to lose all of his money – $20,000 to be exact – all of his life savings that he put towards his new, pie-in-the-sky venture.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­I will say that the kid was bright, and he had a real street-smart essence about him too. He was also cocky – not in a bad way, but very self assured that this was what he wanted to do, and his vision was simple: sell a lot of stuff and make a lot of money. Hey, who were we to judge, and we’d gladly help the guy spend what he had.

One day at lunch, he turned to me with a straight face and said, “Tommy, my goal is to become a millionaire before I hit 30 years old.” I remember laughing, slapping him in the back of the head, and saying that I wanted to make it with Suzanne Somers, and I guaranteed him that I had a much better shot at my goal.

After a couple weeks I grew to like AJ. We hung out after work, became friends, and I really wanted to see him do well – but unfortunately, I had my doubts. I mean, you should have seen the wacky stuff he was peddling: a stinky little am/fm radio with ear phones for like $9.99… a pair of sandals with large rubber nubs for your feet, some kind of reflexology thingy… a plastic gizmo called a nail driver that attached to any standard drill, and a $4 battery powered electric shaver. “Who the hell was going to turn over their hard earned pay for this stuff,” I thought, but I had a job to do – develop ad concepts, write copy and design.

So, his very first ad ran in the National Enquirer for the AM/FM radio . Then other ads followed in various papers across the country.  During the course of the year, he’d come in with a variety of thingamajigs to test at different price points. I didn’t really pay much attention to how he was doing financially, I just did my thing and made my whopping $16,500 salary. I remember we met for a beer one day after work and I figured I knew the guy long enough to inquire on how it was going. His answer was simple, “Pretty Good.” I chuckled and asked how many of those spiked flip flops he was stuck with. In his classic, laid back, nonchalant demeanor, the young Mr. K replied, “I did close to a quarter of a million this past year.”

WHAT?! Are you friggin’ kidding me?!!!

No, he wasn’t kidding. AJ doesn’t kid around when it comes to making money. I was pretty freaked out, and needless to say, drinks were on him. I can honestly say at that moment, I became a believer in AJ Khubani.

This Tuesday, read about AJ hitting the big time, as my friendship grew with the future As Seen on TV master, in…

The King and I… Part 2: Seeing the world through Amber colored glasses

- Tommy Z
TeleBrands The BLOG

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