Jonny Cannon is going for the as-seen-on-TV gold.
The 47-year-old Raleigh entrepreneur quit his job as regional sales manager for a company that sells commercial loading docks at the end of last year to devote himself fulltime to his patent-pending creation, the Freedom Tray.
The collapsible, portable tray holds food and drinks - in cupholders and a recessed storage area - and is designed to avoid on-the-go messes. It has a certain anyone-could-have-invented-it quality. Then again, so does the Snuggie.
Another parallel to the Snuggie: The Freedom Tray is generating some buzz, and some ridicule, on the Internet.
Critics have said the tray carries the burden of American excess.
Infomercials featuring the product recently debuted on cable TV. The patriotic sales pitch: "Made in America. Used everywhere." The price: $19.95. But in the best ShamWow tradition, act now and get two for the price of one.
Cannon said he and his partner, Greensboro businessman Jim Rucker, have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop and market the tray. Rucker is president of South Atlantic Cos., whose South Atlantic Packaging in Winston-Salem is doing the assembling and packaging and fulfilling orders. Different parts of the tray are made throughout the state. The legs, for example, come from High Point.
Cannon is encouraged by early sales. Through Tuesday afternoon - the last time he tabulated the results - consumers had purchased 10,000 units - half of them in the prior week. In addition, he and his ad agency, Cary's Genesis Marketing Partners, are looking for sales momentum to build as the ad campaign continues.
The hurdle is establishing a need for a product as ubiquitous as trays.
Sales of products that rely on infomercials are holding up because they sell for attractive prices, said Louis Foreman, founder of a Charlotte product design firm, Eventys, and executive producer of PBS' "Everyday Edisons."
Foreman said of the Freedom Tray: "I can see it being successful on TV. There are plenty of people who could see value in something like this."
But not everybody. One blog that focuses on television calls it "a ridiculous product with an even more ridiculous advertising pitch."
Celebrating excess
Ken Layne, editor of the Washington blog Wonkette, wrote: "Do you have a hard time balancing a lap-full of bacon burgers and grease tacos while you drive around slurping caramel-coffee ice cream shakes and 172-oz. buckets of Mr. Pibb?...What you need is the Freedom Tray."
Layne said in an interview that Wonkette is always looking for "ridiculous, politically inspired items" to feature in its Annual War on Christmas Gift Guide. The Freedom Tray is destined for this year's list given its "representation of American excess."
But Layne allows the tray could be a success. "The perfect novelty gift can be either ironic or unironic," he said.
Indeed, some people see it both ways.
"I'm actually buying half of dozen of these as Xmas gifts," notes one comment attached to a blog post. "Some for friends who will get the joke, the rest for family who won't, but will like it even more."
"Like with any product," said Mike Dixon of Genesis Marketing, "there are some people who think it is great and some people who say, 'That's not for me.' "
None of the negative bloggers appear to have actually tried the tray, said Dixon. Indeed, on Wednesday afternoon he sent a free Freedom Tray to an online critic. "If you get your hands on it, you are going to like it," Dixon said.
It holds 80 pounds
The Freedom Tray's back story is a classic tale of someone who created a product to solve a problem.
Cannon's three kids all play sports, and the family also has season tickets for Wolfpack football, basketball and baseball games. Fast food and tailgating left their mark on the family car. Or, as Cannon explained it, you could scrape a three-course meal off the seats and floor boards.
Cannon isn't a tinkerer. "If you gave me a week and all the materials, I couldn't change the oil in my car," he quipped. But he fashioned a prototype out of a pizza box and duct tape, then turned it over to the pros.
It's called the Freedom Tray because it offers freedom from mess, but also to connote its made-in-America roots.
Cannon grew up in Kannapolis, where his parents worked for textile giant Pillowtex, which abruptly closed in 2003 and put thousands out of work. He views the Freedom Tray as a tribute to hardworking Americans.
It's also a lasting tribute. Cannon said he piled more than 80 pounds worth of barbells on the tray before it showed signs of distress.
That's a heckuva lot of Happy Meals.
