Rick Cesari

Rick Cesari has been responsible for many successful infomercial campaigns. Under his direction, his agency, Cesari Direct produced campaigns for OxiClean, George Foreman Grill, Sonicare, Rug Doctor, Eagle One, and for his own company, the Juiceman Juicer.

Biography

Rick Cesari, along with his older brother Steve and six younger siblings, was raised in suburban Westchester County, New York, USA. After school and on weekends, he was expected to work in his father's grocery store. Cesari earned a pre-med degree before moving to the western United States to join a direct mail marketing partnership. In 1989, Cesari and his brother Steve took out a home-equity loan on their mother's house to raise money to open their own business.citation|title=The New Debate over The Very Rich|journal=Fortune|last=Fisher|first=Anne B.|date=June 29, 1992|url=http://my.spinsite.com/VitalVisionsInc/uploads/FortuneArticle.pdf|accessdate=2007-11-20|page=p. 42.]

The new company was known as Trillium Health Products. The company ran seminars on proper nutrition and also sold a juicer, known as the Juiceman, and a smaller version known as the Juiceman, Jr. The Juiceman Juicer was marketed with direct marketing.citation|last=Roarke|first=Mike|title=CRTV wrote the book on infomercials|journal=Puget Sound Business Journal|location=Seattle, Washington|date=October 31, 1997|url=http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/1997/11/03/focus15.html|accessdate=2007-11-20] It's annual revenues in 1989 were $950,000 and had jumped to over $75 million by 1991.

In 1993, Cesari and his brother sold their company to Salton Inc., and Cesari created Cesari Direct (formerly known as CRTV), which specializes in direct marketing. Cesari Direct produces infomercials, buys the media to display them, provides web development as well as SEM and SEO and mananges backend veders that are responsible for taking orders. One of his first large deals was with Optiva (The makers of Sonicare), to market their electric toothbrushes. Between 1994 and 1996, Optiva got a 338% jump in sales.

Generally, 10% of direct marketing campaigns are successful, but as of 1997, Cesari Direct had a 70% success rate. Among their successful products are OxiClean, the George Foreman Grill, and the Sonicare Toothbrush.citation|title=ERA Interviews...Rick Cesari|publisher=Electronic Retailing Association|url=http://www.retailing.org/newsletter%20main/Interviews/r_cesari_interview.htm|accessdate=2007-11-20] "'The power of the infomercial is twofold," Cesari said. "One, you have a whole half-hour to tell the story of the product as opposed to 30 seconds or 60 seconds. The second aspect is it basically creates a subsidized advertising program.'"

Cesari was also involved in the 2007 creation of the venture capital firm The Branding Foundry, which provides both money and marketing expertise to startup companies.citation|last=Dietrich|first=Heidi|title=New Business model: the ventury capital ad agency|newspaper=Puget Sound Business Journal|url=http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2007/03/05/story15.html|date=March 2, 2007|accessdate=2007-11-20]

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