Extreme Makeover: Stock Promotion Edition

While it's fun to watch the price of REFR collapse, it only presses the urgency to tell the many tales of REFR while time remains to do so. With that in mind...

Last spring, right about the same time as the SPD Inc. closure, REFR scored what appeared to be a promotional coup. A licensee, Steve Abadi (who seems to run several businesses out of his house, including Innovative Glass Corp.), arranged to have SPD featured on a special "live" edition of ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The show, as per its format, selected a couple of deserving souls -- in this case, a couple of NYC firemen/roommmates who were present for the 9/11 attacks -- had their apparently completely refurbished and remodeled with updated appliances, seperate bedrooms, an "eternal flame" memorial to their fallen comrades, etc.

One feature that got a certain amount of pre-publicity was, if you haven't guessed, a number of SPD windows that were installed as part of the project. Think of it! SPD being shown off live in front of an audience of millions! Demand was sure to skyrocket from the publicity!

So much for the theory. The practice wasn't nearly so hot. In two excruciatingly boring hours mixing live and taped footage, which even an appearance by Regis Philbin couldn't save, the SPD windows got referred to about twice the entire show, and even then the term "SPD" was never mentioned. Furthermore, the SPD windows were installed on top of an internal room partition, basically out of the limelight. For whatever reason, the variable shading feature of the SPD glass was never demonstrated (possibly because they weren't able to get it working -- a callback to the Jeep Rescue debacle, perhaps?), and, almost as a final insult to REFR, the big finish of the reveal was motorized physical shades on the external windows -- exactly the sort of thing supposedly made obsolete by SPD.

The whole thing was unanimously considered a major disappointment (and given the rabidness of the company's defenders, that's saying something), but it did have the effect of distracting everyone from the implications of SPD Inc.'s shutdown, so perhaps it wasn't a total loss.

All the same, it was the beginning of a very cold year for REFR.