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The TV pitchman Billie Mays is dead, of a heart attack last month, but his pitch goes on. For Mighty Putty. For the Awesome Auger. For Jupiter Jack, a wireless speakerphone.
Even from the grave, Billie Mays is pitching. And a whole lot of others, too. In the deep of night and in prime time, the infomercials roll like fizzy water now. Breathless. Earnest. Cajoling. Demanding. For products simple and surreal.
And Americans get out their credit cards and buy.
Up next, On Point: A new book looks at the kings and queens, secrets and psychology of America’s booming infomercial empire.
You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.
-Tom Ashbrook
Guests:
Remy Stern, author of “But Wait…There’s More!”
Noah Goldstein, professor of organizational behavior at the UCLA Anderson School of Management and author of “Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive.”
I love what the infomercials do. They get folks to buy what they absolutely do not need, or often, even want. In the very rare event that I too feel the need, I just go to two or three garage sales and find, not one, but two, new in the box.
Posted by Fred Hegel, on July 17th, 2009 at 10:39 am EDTBut wait, there’s more, the bonus items are also there and of course included.
I know all about informercials; I’ve heard pledge drives.
Posted by Bob Gardner, on July 17th, 2009 at 11:03 am EDTI realized I was getting old when I first saw an infomercial product I wanted. Sometimes you win though.
And there are awesome parodies on youtube by the way.. particularly:
“Slap Chop Rap” with Vince
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWRyj5cHIQA
and the Doom Snuggie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h05ZQ7WHw8Y
Posted by Doug, on July 17th, 2009 at 11:21 am EDTSelling everything to the masses on the edge of geographical or cyberspace frontiers – snake oil, religion, you name it – is Americana at it’s best! Billy Mays got nuthin’ on Billy Sunday, Aimee Semple McPherson or Jimmy Swaggart.
Posted by Bob Werme, on July 17th, 2009 at 11:24 am EDTI’m also haunted by this sentence from an article on free market capitalism I read recently …
“By definition, buyers and sellers do not coerce each other, in the sense that they obtain each others property rights without the use of physical force, threat of physical force, or fraud, nor are they coerced by a third party …”
Ah, yes– You’d think it costs $400, but you wont even pay $390, or $200, or…
This is straight out of an aria from “L’Elisir D’Amore” (The Elixer of Love) by Donizetti, first performed in Milan in 1832 — which was based on an even older piece. This is an ancient concept.. I’m sure cavemen were shilling their cave paintings!
Posted by Marion, on July 17th, 2009 at 11:38 am EDTI see someone has beat me to the pledge drive comment — public radio would be greatly hampered w/o pledge drives, no? Get these guy to do your fundraisers? It could be the whole bass-amatic ‘09 …
(people I know incessantly talk about the “Sham-Wow” … and I know about the you-tube parody …
Posted by Suzanne Michelle, on July 17th, 2009 at 11:42 am EDTI want to mention that Vince with the slap chop seems different than any pitchmen that came before him, he seems like a product of youtube culture. He is snide, a little crude, he seems to be making fun of the medium itself while selling the product.
Posted by Ken, on July 17th, 2009 at 11:46 am EDTWhere I live, there is a drug store chain that has a set of about 5 shelves for “as advertised on TV.” You can ask the clerks about them.
Posted by Ellen Dibble, on July 17th, 2009 at 11:52 am EDTI do wonder with TV ads where these things are made, how far they are shipped, where taxes are collected.
okay okay….I spent 500 bucks on a set of subliminal cd’s to fix all my problems 10 years ago…..I have no idea what was on them – I listened for 20 mins to the white noise wondering what messages were being implanted – I freaked out – I threw ‘em away….it’s not that I had too much money…I had access to too many credit cards and got sucked in
Posted by edd, on July 17th, 2009 at 11:55 am EDTMy husband loves to watch the music infomercials. I’m so thankful that he refuses to use his credit card number over the phone or the internet, or our CD collection would be absolutely overrun with moldie oldies.
Posted by Vicki, on July 17th, 2009 at 11:57 am EDTThere are also infomercials that we *actively* seek; an example that comes to mind is “Will it blend” – which advertises a blender that can blend anything. It’s incredibly funny when they blend things like: a golf club, an iPod, the list goes on. Needless to say I couldn’t believe I actually wanted to watch what is essentially an infomercial.
Posted by Pete Jensen, on July 17th, 2009 at 11:58 am EDTMay I suggest the song “Vegematic” by Steve Goodman as a warning to all about late night buying!
Posted by Beth Horst, on July 17th, 2009 at 12:08 pm EDToxyclean does indeed work really well. Trader Joes has an even better, environmentally friendly version.
Posted by m, on July 17th, 2009 at 6:10 pm EDT“Billy we hardly heard thee.”
A tribute to the late Billy Mays. Never bought a thing he sold, but he was so darsh gone intense and , dare I say, loveable.
The others (especially that Carnival barker Sham-Wow guy) are pure hacks, no better that the crap they sell, but Billy seemed to really be into his products.
Posted by Algonquin J. Calhoun, on July 17th, 2009 at 6:33 pm EDTRemy Stern completely ignores Tom’s question : “So many infomercials at all times, who is watching them and why?” Instead explaining why the stations need the revenue from them.
Skipping along the surface of this topic it seems. No one really wants to lift that rock and take a look eh?
Posted by BAS, on July 17th, 2009 at 8:42 pm EDTBuyer Beware?
Posted by Janet Sagen, on July 18th, 2009 at 6:13 pm EDTI heard no mention of “truth in advertising”. Don’t we
have laws that regulate how you can represent a product?
I feel that this lack of regulation says much more about our society than the fact that people get sucked in
by taking “mental shortcuts”. Remember the Psychic Network
and how long that went on before there was legal intervention.
Let’s not forget the morning shows. Just because the time is paid for by the network doesn’t meant it’s not an infomercial.
Posted by fredericc, on July 19th, 2009 at 10:32 pm EDTI enjoyed this piece enormously. I used a pointer to this show for my class on social engineering and network security. It is just the other side of the coin.
In all the years I have only purchased one thing. I purchased a set of CD’s from the late lamented K-Tel. Enjoyed the CD’s and found they were good value but got junk mail from them for years before they went out of business.
Posted by Beth, on July 20th, 2009 at 8:35 am EDTToo bad nobody has the guts to speak the truth: people buy from these things because they are idiots.
Posted by Phyllis, on July 20th, 2009 at 12:38 pm EDTVince Schlomi on the SHAMWOW: “It’s made by the Germans. They always make good stuff.”
Posted by steve e, on July 25th, 2009 at 6:48 am EDT