You would be surprised, if you knew how much USPLabs spends on traditional advertising. Close to nothing as a percentage of sales! Consequently, your comment is purely speculative and apparently based on false premises. Word-of-mouth advertising drives a significantly bigger share of our business.I think you should always draw some suspicion when a product forms a "special deal" with someone like GNC. USPlabs got a large ad for the product on the front page of GNC.com and while I have not been to a GNC store, very likely there is some large ad or two for this product as well.
Noting specifically the ad on GNC.com you can see that the slideshow shares the space with brands Gatorade(big name), GNC-store-label products, and some GNC-related sale. And considering that GNC is a lot "bigger" and "more known" than say, VitaminShoppe, this does not look like it was a cheap deal at all.
Maybe I am just being a bit picky, but in my opinion, it almost as though USPlabs is a bit worried about the success of this product. I mean, why else would they shell out so much money for an ad campaign for one product? While at the same time you have other products succeeding both in sales and reviews while, as it seems, sticking to word of mouth and no fancy ad campaigns.
$69 + large ad campaign...Just something you see companies like BSN, MuscleTech and the like do...So I think it is unsurprising that people are being left unconvinced.
I am not saying advertising is bad. But I think there is a certain amount of confidence you have to have in your product for it too succeed, where you do not have to go with a big name like GNC just to help sell your product.
Regarding Pink Magic, it will be hard to keep the product on the shelves, based purely on word-of-mouth advertising by our loyal and satisfied customers.