OPINION: “He was a visionary who changed the way America shopped.”
I once spent a few minutes on the phone with Ron Popeil, the legendary pitchman who died on Wednesday in Los Angeles at the age of 86 . Naturally, he tried to sell me a gizmo to cook my Thanksgiving turkey.
Popeil’s infomercials shaped and defined that advertising format in its infancy decades ago, with his spots playing out like mini dramas with a homey touch. He set up the problem — say, the high cost of beef jerky . Then, he began to showcase his product as the solution, but as if he were telling a story rather than, well, selling. It was only about halfway into the infomercial that he commenced with the hard pitch.
Popeil’s fame was such that he became a brand unto himself, and an inspiration for the memorable “Saturday Night Live” Super Bass-O-Matic skit that mocked his whole concept of handy-household-helper products. Indeed, his main company was called Ronco, at least before he sold it in 2005 for $55 million.In some ways, Popeil lived long enough to see his idea of shopping-as-entertainment fall out of favor.
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