Home improvement aficionados and late-night cable television fans are probably familiar with the Little Giant Ladder infomercial, a 28-and-a-half-minute paid advertisement that demonstrates the trademark versatility of the 24-ladders-in-one system and carries testimonials from emergency services, Air Force and space shuttle services to the average housewife touting the multi-use ladder’s safety, durability and storage-friendly capacity.

The infomercial also draws on the acting talents of Richard Karn, former Home Improvement star Tim Allen’s sidekick and host of the game show Family Feud, and Robin Hartl, former co-host of Hometime, a home-improvement television show. Hartl’s relationship with Little Giant began in late 2003 when she and Dean Johnson, another co-host on Hometime, shot an infomercial for the ladder system.

First aired last March, the Little Giant Ladder infomercial — ranked this month by rating service Jordan Whitney as No. 1 in terms of sales dollars spent by consumers — is a classic example of the power of direct-response television. Shortly after the infomercial’s launch on local and cable TV networks worldwide last March, the small Springville company became an overnight household name, experiencing sales growth of about 800 percent in the immediate 60-day period.

On the flip side, such phenomenal growth also presented immediate challenges, including a need to increase its work force by seven to eight times and finding financing for increased payrolls, raw material purchases and shipping costs, said Hal Wing, founder of Wing Enterprises.

To meet the burgeoning demand, the 125-worker company had to immediately add another 750 manufacturing, administrative and customer service workers, increase the number of production lines to five from one, as well as the number of eight-hour shifts per day to three from one. Today, the company produces 3,000 to 5,000 ladders daily.

“We were like Santa’s workshop on meth. The temporary staff agencies we hired had to move their offices into our building. Problem was only 50 percent of the workers they found were good help, so we had to keep weeding and testing,” Wing said. “Basically we took 400 people off the street that had never built a ladder in their lives and put them to work around the clock.”

The company was founded as Little Giant Industries in 1973, a partnership between Wing and Walter Kuemmerlin, a German inventor who first patented the ladder’s technology. The two met in Germany in 1972 when Wing was playing translator for a friend who wanted to buy Kuemmerlin’s ladder.

“When I saw the ladder, I knew there was an opportunity there. But I made it better with two ideas. Instead of using steel parts, which made the ladder heavy, I proposed using aluminum for the entire ladder. Also, the hinge wouldn’t lock in place, and it was sharp and could easily take a person’s finger off. I provided a safe locking mechanism for the ladder,” Wing said.

But Little Giant was sold in 1984 to a California company, Technical Equities, which went into bankruptcy a year later. Wing bought back the assets of Little Giant in 1986 and assimilated these into his company, Wing Enterprises, and put 40-plus workers who had been laid off by the bankrupt company back to work again.

The company started growing market share by targeting dealerships and mom-and-pop hardware stores at national and international trade shows. Last year, the company decided to go the way of infomercials — which Hal described as “a tradeshow on a grander scale.”

With more TV channels available, buying media time from broadcast companies and national networks to reach markets that are more targeted is getting easier and more affordable, said Art Wing, one of Hal’s children and the company’s chief marketing officer.

The infomercial is an effective medium for building credibility, he said. Unlike traditional advertising, direct response television can help a company build instant brand recognition and consumer awareness while generating sales. It also opens doors to distributing through mass merchandisers such as Target and Kmart, and retail chains such as Sears Grand, Linens ‘N Things and tool supply stores including Granger Supply.

Having longevity and making improvements in its branding efforts was the driving factor behind its infomercial campaign, Art said. That includes making revisions to its infomercial to keep it fresh and localizing the infomercial for various countries by using local experts and hosts. The next step would be to target markets such as the rapidly-growing Hispanic population through radio, direct mail and on-demand video advertising, he said.

Today, home owners who order from the company’s Web site and through its infomercial — which can be seen on as many as 300 local and cable channels worldwide — account for up to half of its business, Hal said. “The infomercial is the engine that drove growth in sales of all our products and made Little Giant a household name. Now I can’t even get on a plane or a cab without people asking if I am the ‘ladder man.’ “

Wing Enterprises Inc.

Owners: Hal and Brigitte Wing

Founded in 1986

Industry: Maker of ladders and accessories

Location: 1325 W. Industrial Circle in Springville

Employees: 500 workers

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page E1.