When a potential client asks advertising consultant Anthony Raissen if he can get them a meeting with a large retail chain, his response is a yes. Then Raissen asks a question of his own: does the client have the resources to do business with those retail chains. Without the dollars and wherewithal to mount an advertising campaign to let consumers know a product is available, a manufacturer risks a loss of sales and money. Retailers want merchandise that moves, not taking up space on a shelf. They then turn around to charge companies to ship back the unsold product. “We tell people be careful what you wish for,” Raissen said To navigate the waters of getting a product into the retail space, Raissen and wife Lauren founded InterQuantum, a consulting service that is now the newest business division of Encino-based advertising and marketing giant Inter/Media Group. On board as clients are weight loss supplement maker Diet Classics; multivitamin Vitalert, made by Calabasas-based Performance Labs; ALCiS pain relief cream; and Avery-Dennison’s fastener division. InterQuantum was created because of the need for a direct to retail model and that it was best to have it run by people with clout and connections in the retail world, said Inter/Media President and COO Robert Yallen. Retail is an industry that most clients are not set up to handle as they need to understand how to present to retailers, what retailers look for and when is the best time to go to retail, Yallen said. “It’s really a tremendous benefit that we have this advantage with this business unit,” he added. Raissen’s claim to fame is that he and Lauren helmed breath mint maker BreathAsure, Inc. until the company filed bankruptcy in 2000 following legal challenges from Warner-Lambert that the product name was deceptive because it didn’t actually do what the advertising claimed. The Raissens sold the company at auction in 2001. Inter/Media created advertising campaigns for BreathAsure. Following the sale, the Raissens moved on to start and run Tamsol, Inc., a division of Chatsworth-based Natrol, Inc., the manufacturer and marketer of branded nutritional products. The couple and Natrol parted ways prior to their joining InterQuantum. The demise of BreathAsure didn’t prevent other companies using direct marketing from approaching Raissen to ask that he do for their products what he did for the soft-gel breath mints. The BreathAsure campaign revolutionized how products can enter the retail market, Raissen boasted, starting with phone orders and infomercials (actor George Kennedy was the spokesman and Anthony Raissen was the voice on many radio ads) that built the database of the thousands of customers who bought the product. When it came time to roll out BreathAsure into the retail market, the company contacted the previous customers by mail to tell them where the mints were available. That resulted in driving “swarms” of customers into the retail sites, Raissen said. The InterQuantum method does something similar by creating strategic marketing and advertising campaigns; helping clients with pricing; using Inter/Media’s creative team to design packaging; and filling out the paper work with the retailers. The division also looks for alternative distribution points. For instance, ALCiS cream is available at golf course pro shops and at car washes. A strength that the Raissens bring to working with clients is that they have been entrepreneurs themselves and have worked on behalf of others. It’s important to know how to work with entrepreneurs and smaller companies because they tend to be strapped for capital, Yallen said. “There are not many companies that can sit down with a prospective client and say ‘We’ve done it with our money and know what it’s like to write the checks ourselves’,” Raissen said.