“I hope this works,” I thought as I plunked my money down on the counter at Bed Bath and Beyond. I bought an electric nail file (better known on infomercials as The Pedi-Paw) for my dog. That was my first and last (until this essay) foray into infomercials. In the commercial, a plethora of canines sat without resistance, waiting their turn for nail trimmings. It was an amazing sight, not once did a well-trained collie, poodle, lab, or mutt pull its paw back, bare its teeth, or nip a groomer and not once did the thought of a well-paid trainer just off-screen occur to me. Guerilla marketing at its finest; it happens time and again to any number of people, at any given time, any given place. Infomercials are so successful in all their forms: debt solutions, chore solutions, body solutions, hair solutions, love solutions. What is it about this type of hard-sell that entices otherwise intelligent people to readily part with reason and their hard-earned dollars?
According to Occam’s Razor the simplest explanation is, more often than not, the best explanation. Perhaps, somebody does need a knife that will cut a cinder block one minute and slice a tomato the next. Maybe not that extreme, still, infomercials do seem to solve any number of problems we may or may not have. A.J. Khubani, CEO of Telebrands, sold over 200,000 adhesive earlobe supporters and 2,000,000 portable stairs for arthritic dogs. Ron Popeil, former owner of Ronco, sold everything from the pocket fisherman to spray-on hair, and sold his own company (not via infomercial) for $55 million. So different infomercials appeal to different people with different problems: PX-90 appeals to people who wish for smaller waists and bigger muscles; Extenze appeals to men that believe women want bigger johnsons, not bigger wallets; Kevin Trudeau and Carlton Sheets appeal to those who do want bigger wallets; the list is endless. The solutions they sell are simple, straightforward, and often have us scratching our heads wondering why we did not think of such amazing things.
But are we really looking for a solution? Maybe it goes deeper than that…
In 1992, Ross Perot burst on the political scene with voodoo sticks for pointers and a litany of line graphs, bar graphs, and pie charts in the first political infomercial; a 30-minute block of prime-time political shrewdness. Perot gave voters hope that his business acumen would “expand the tax base, reduce the national debt, and bring new meaning to ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ ” Later polls revealed two out of five viewers found Perot’s ads to be truthful as opposed to Clinton and Bush, Sr. as “almost truthful.” Our potential office-seekers sell themselves as firebrands of a new civil, democratic revolution; harbingers of change, cut from some different mold our Creator keeps for extra special occasions. Voters buy it or not. Candidates do not let on that a watched a pot never boils – neither does governing. Still, it is nice to hope for change.
Hope, ever elusive; Alexander Pope believed it springs eternal. I hoped the Pedi-Paw was a miracle of some kind and not something that would catch fire ten minutes into its assigned task (ok, maybe it was twenty minutes). As I lay in bed, lulled by the pulsating late night, blue light of the television, perhaps, in the witching hour a fairy pitchman comes to us and casts a spell – a spell with no reason or logic, but one that gives us something to believe in. What? Isn’t that better than admitting I fell for an infomercial?
