The Most Annoying (and Successful) Pitch-Man

Posted August 19, 2008, 3:43 p.m.

Everybody who watches TV for more than 15 minutes in a week, particularly if some of that time is on Cable/Satillite networks, knows Billy Mays. He’s the guy who sells gimmicky ‘As Seen On TV’ junk like Oxi-Clean, Orange Glo, the Awesome Auger, and more by screaming at you. Personally I find his pitching style abrasive and annoying, and will avoid buying products he has pitched even more than I generally avoid ‘As Seen On TV’ junk. According to The Washington Post though, he is actually extremely successful at what he does. Mays is one of the most sought-after pitch-men in the television universe.

I really don’t get why these ‘As Seen On TV’ companies insist on annoying people—Billy Mays’s yelling to sell hundreds of products and Vince Offer’s condescending pitch for the ShamWow towels—rather than the traditional style of simply showing the product and why it’s better than the alternatives. I don’t buy from companies that don’t treat me like a rational, practical, intelligent person.

The strangest part is not that these companies resort to these pitches, since they have done it throughout the history of television. The strangest part is that it works, and people buy these products based solely on the annoying sales pitch of a paid advertiser. Invariably, independent research reveals that these products don’t work. On the rare occasion that they do work and do represent a novel solution to a problem, they quickly begin appearing in real retailers or established, trustworthy companies begin producing similar products. That’s when I start buying.

Scott Bradford has been putting his opinions on his website since 1995—before most people knew what a website was. He has been a professional web developer in the public- and private-sector for over twenty years. He is an independent constitutional conservative who believes in human rights and limited government, and a Catholic Christian whose beliefs are summarized in the Nicene Creed. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from George Mason University. He loves Pink Floyd and can play the bass guitar . . . sort-of. He’s a husband, pet lover, amateur radio operator, and classic AMC/Jeep enthusiast.

Quotes

It cannot be said often enough: Well-paying jobs don’t come from bailouts. They come from start-ups, which come from smart, creative, inspired risk takers.

Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth.

Who does not perceive how much we stand in need of the goodness and beneficence of God, if he but consider the extreme destitution and misery of man?

It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.

My son, do not lead the life of a beggar; it is better to die than to beg. When a man looks to the table of another, his existence cannot be considered as life.

Predicting the future is a hopeless, thankless task, with ridicule to begin with and, all too often, scorn to end with.

News is what somebody does not want you to print. All the rest is advertising.

To sit home, read one’s favorite paper, and scoff at the misdeeds of the men who do things is easy, but it is markedly ineffective. It is what evil men count upon the good men’s doing.

When they hear the words of God on our lips, unbelievers are amazed at their beauty and power, but when they see that those words have no effect in our lives, their admiration turns to scorn, and they dismiss such words as myths and fairy tales.

Treat bad men exactly as if they were insane.

The best way to solve any problem is to remove the cause.

We have certain standards of life that we believe are best for us. We do not ask other nations to discard theirs, but we do wish to preserve ours.

Next to hating their enemies, men are most inclined to flatter them.

Everything human must have in it both joy and sorrow; the only matter of interest is the manner in which the two things are balanced or divided.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.

For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.

The three hardest tasks in the world are neither physical feats nor intellectual achievements, but moral acts: to return love for hate, to include the excluded, and to say, ‘I was wrong.’

Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your betters.

Christianity, unlike any other religion in the world, begins with catastrophe and defeat. Sunshine religions and psychological inspirations collapse in calamity and wither in adversity.