The Becher Bunch: A Collection of Great TV Pitchmen
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The Godfather of TV marketing, Popeil was the original pitchman, selling dozens of products from the Chop-O-Matic to the Veg-O-Matic, the Drain Buster to the Pocket Fisherman. Starting out as a carnival barker, he took his patter to TV when he discovered that a taped, replayed pitch could reach far more viewers. To this day, his catchphrase, "It slices, it dices!" is shorthand for a slick, hard sales push.</p>
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While Popeil brought carnival barking to the airwaves, Becher and his partner, Ed Valenti took TV sales to the next level, bringing in a baroque showmanship that tended toward the surreal. Their Ginsu, Royal Durasteel and Armourcoat ads featured knives cutting beer cans, cakes with fish baked in, and eggs getting cracked on diamond rings. Those alone would earn them a place in the TV marketing hall of fame, but wait, there's more: The pair also helped create the pushy, energetic language of TV sales -- a legacy that lives on today.</p>
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If pioneers like Becher and Popeil laid the groundwork for TV marketing, Mays turned it into a science. Hawking products like Orange Glo, OxiClean, and the Shamwow, the grating, hypercharged Mays was a force to be reckoned with. Unlike his predecessors, many of whom had to search out products to sell, Mays was actively sought after as a pitchman, and his imprimatur was a key to guaranteed sales. This, in fact, became the cornerstone of <em>PitchMen</em>, a Discovery channel series that documented Mays' process of finding and pitching new products.</p>
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Selling novelties on TV is only the tip of the direct-response marketing juggernaut. Lesko, an author and researcher, promises to connect customers with U.S. government grants that they can use to realize their dreams. Unfortunately, much of this "free money" comes from public assistance programs and, according to his critics, Lesko is encouraging his customers to take advantage of America's poverty safety net.</p>
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While pitchmen often make a lot of money, they rarely manage to cross over into mainstream respectability. One exception is Robbins, a motivational speaker, who graduated from promoting self-help books and seminars on television to promoting self help books and seminars at TED conferences.</p>
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Selling vegetable juices may seem like a thankless task, but Kordich has made it into an inexorable, full force push for health and wellness. According to Kordich, daily consumption of apple and carrot juices cured him of bladder cancer, which helps explain the near-religious zeal that he brings to pushing fresh juices. As a side note, his hyperbolic pitch inspired the classic "Juice Weasel" skit, in which Jim Carrey portrayed a psychotic juicer salesman on <em>In Living Color</em>.</p>
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Even at its best, TV marketing carries a slight scent of sleaze. On some level, even its most trusted salesmen seem to be a little too slick, a little bit questionable. This was certainly the case with Lapre, a pitchman who sold vitamins and claimed to have made $50,000 per week from placing "tiny classified ads" in newspapers. In 2011, while facing charges of conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering, he died of self-inflicted wounds.</p>
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The successor to Billy Mays' pitchman mantle, Sullivan is a British-born television marketer who got his start selling the "smart mop." Nowadays, he is the main spokesman for TeleBrands and the star of <em>PitchMen.</em></p>
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