Halo Innovations Inc., a startup launched to combat sudden infant death syndrome, is using technology developed in that fight to enter the much bigger and more competitive market of air filtration systems. Halo recently introduced its first product for that space: PureNight, a filtration unit that it claims can remove nearly all allergens from the air surrounding a bed.
It's a big step for Halo, which generates most of its $5 million in revenue from a sleeping-bag-like sack designed to keep infants warm without the risks of suffocation that standard blankets can cause. The consumer air-filtration market, in contrast, is estimated at nearly $400 million, with big brand names such as Honeywell and the Sharper Image.
But Halo has recruited an executive who knows the nighttime: Chuck Dorsey, a former executive with Plymouth-based Select Comfort Corp. who plans to use some of the direct-marketing strategies employed by the air-mattress maker. Print ads began this fall, and informational TV spots will start airing in early 2006. Halo also is closing on $2 million in funding to help the rollout.
The SleepSack was Halo's first and best-known item. But the technology behind the PureNight filtration system came from a later product, a crib mattress with a built-in ventilation system that kept carbon dioxide from pooling around an infant's head.
Executives recognized that the filtration systems in the mattress could have a broader market potential. More than 50 million people suffer from allergies or asthma attacks, which can often strike at night. Halo has conducted a clinical study of the $499 PureNight device, which resembles a large desk lamp that hangs over the user's bed. Allergy sufferers in the study reported immediate improvement, Dorsey said. "For a good number of people, we're a solution that hasn't existed before," he said.
Which is not to say that Halo is going into an untapped market: The competition is fierce and well-established. At $400, Sharper Image's Ionic Breeze filtration system is the retailer's best-selling item, even though Consumer Reports has criticized the machine as ineffective. Dorsey said a second study, conducted at the University of Minnesota, found the Sharper Image product cleaned about 27 percent of pollutants from the air overnight; Halo's performance: 99 percent.
Those figures will be front and center of Halo's marketing campaign, portions of which can be found at www.purenight.com. The company isn't using an outside ad agency, relying instead on the infomercial-style ads and direct marketing Dorsey used at Select Comfort in the 1990s. "This product works, but it's a high-ticket item and we've got no market awareness," Dorsey said. Consumers are going to need a lot of information about it to convince them to buy, and sales will take longer than a retail environment would allow.
mreilly@bizjournals.com | (612) 288-2110
¶ 9:33 PM
