Waterfront: June 2007 - Hot Tub Infomercial Hits The Air; Optical Illusion

Hot Tub Infomercial Hits The Air

30-minutespot aims to generate interest. 

Andy Tournas, president of ThermoSpas, used to be a fixture on late-night television promoting the company's hot tub in an infomercial, which ran throughout the late 1990s and featured a woman interested in buying a hot tub and her handsome nextdoor neighbor with a ThermoSpa, who was only too happy to give her some advice.

That spot aired for many years, but was getting dated, according to Michelle Connolly, public relations director for ThermoSpas. "It's almost 10 years old, and our product has changed significantly in that time, and I think also that hot tub consumers are more sophisticated, as well," she says. "The new infomercial is what we consider a hot tub documentary. It talks about how the Romans used warmwater therapy and it goes through that to how California started the hot tub craze, and they were using these wooden wine barrels as hot tubs basically, and how it's now these sophisticated, high-tech models that you can purchase."

Consumers who call an 800 number for more information will receive a packet and a visit from a ThermoSpas representative if they're interested, according to Connolly. Though ThermoSpas does sell directly to the consumer, they have a few dealers as well. The spot will air more than 10,000 times in 60 markets.

Optical Illusion

Is this really a pool? Sort of. 

Is this really a pool. Sort of If you can navigate your way through the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan, to find it, Brazilian artist Leando Erlich's swimming pool, a permanent gallery installation, is a pool like no other. The museum, assembled like a jigsaw in a circular envelope, is a collection of abstract geometric forms, with corridors of different widths and lengths. At the end of one tapering passage through a small portal is the swimming pool.

From the courtyard above, it looks as if fully clothed people are at the bottom of the pool. On closer inspection, this is revealed as an illusion, the effect of a layer of Plexiglas covered by just a couple of inches of water.