The Blaine County Journal News-Opinion - We've Got The County Covered

The combination of the stay at home directives related to COVID-19 plus some long winter days raised my awareness of certain types of advertising on television. Particularly late at night and some early mornings the number of ads promoting unfamiliar products and infomercials hyping products is crushing. The commercials for things like the Lint Lizard (to remove flammable lint from your laundry dryer) to the Full Crystal Cleaner hose apparatus for washing the outside of your house and windows (no need for a ladder) can become tiresome after a while.

Now the old enticement "buy one, get one free" has been replaced with "get another for just an additional fee." What's an additional fee? And "But wait, there's more" is still the transition to how the deal will be sweetened. Did someone actually coin the phrase "But wait, there's more?'" Here's some of what I learned about the history of pitchmen (includes some women) and how their methods have changed.

Ron Popeil: from Chicago street pitchman to national

pop culture icon

Ron Popeil is likely the most well-known and successful pitchmen in the U.S. Alert readers may recall seeing him in the last few years pitching on a "Ronco Showtime Six + Knives" infomercial. Now in his mid-80's, Popeil began his career as a teenaged pitchman in Chicago. His father and uncle owned Popeil Brothers, a Chicago-based company that designed and sold a wide variety of unique kitchen gadgets.

Young Ron's strong suit was selling, not making gadgets. He began selling as a pitchman on Chicago's Maxwell Street, a chaotic 'old-world' street market. During the same period he was a pitchman in Woolworth's flagship store in downtown Chicago. From an elevated stage he demonstrated and sold kitchen gadgets to office workers on lunch breaks and homemakers in the city shopping. As a teen he was making $1000 per week at Woolworth's plus what he could earn on Maxwell Street.

But it was TV in the mid-1950's that allowed Ron Popeil to really come in to his own. Creating unscripted, low-budget commercials he did his street pitch in 30-second commercials for TV. Readers of a certain age may recall some of the classic products his family produced, and some new ones Ron designed: GLH-9 Hair in a Can Spray (spray 'hair' over bald spots); the Veg-O-Matic (for chopping or slicing vegetables); the Pocket Fisherman (a fishing rod and reel that fit in the glove compartment of your vehicle-one of Ron's own creations); the Smokeless Ashtray (circulates the smoke back into a filter on the tray) and dozens more.

Popeil's Show Time Rotisserie and BBQ ("Just set it and forget it.") brought in over a billion dollars for Ronco, the marketing/design company that Popeil and a partner started in the 1960's. Ronco sold in 2005 for $60 million.

Constantly on TV pitching his wares Ron Popeil became a pop culture icon. "Self" magazine declared him "one of the 25 people who have changed the way we eat." Comedian Dan Akroyd spoofed Popeil's TV commercial for the Veg-O-Matic with a commercial on "Saturday Night Live" for the 'Bass-O-Matic,' a blender like phony device that promised "no need for scaling, cleaning or deboning a bass, just drop it in the blender." The Chicago Cultural Center paid tribute to Ron with a display of products he developed and produced in his adopted city. There's even a Veg-O-Matic II in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., exhibited as a "genuine piece of Americana."

By now you've probably guessed correctly, Ron Popeil coined the phrase "But wait, there's more." See an ad with "But wait, there's more," remember Ron Popeil. "But wait..." leads to additional ways to sweeten the deal, especially the classic pitchman come on: 'Buy one, get one free' (known as 'BOGO') in pitchman lingo.

How "Buy One, Get One Free (BOGO)" became

"Just Pay a Separate Fee"

In 2017 the Federal Trade Commission decided that "an offer couldn't be classified as a BOGO (buy one, get one free) if separate payment, taxes, or shipping/handling was required for the second item." This partly came about when various complaints were made that some advertisements did not adequately explain the additional costs required to get a second item. Unspecified fees made the second item "not free."

Ron Popeil sold thousands of the Veg-O-Matic II invented and manufactured by his father. This 1963 original version is on display in the American Museum of History (Smithsonian Institution) in Washington, DC, in part as a tribute to the ingenuity of the Popeil family and their fellow pitchmen. This model pictured originally sold for $7.77.

Online payment systems often compounded this problem when only at checkout did these additional costs surface. The FTC said that if additional fees were required but not disclosed until checkout it was deceptive to consumers. So, that's why you now see "get a second item, just pay the additional fee." It's up to the consumer to make sure they understand what the fee is and the seller to adequately lay out that additional cost.

The takeaway for readers is this: Beware of "We'll send you a second one, free!" Likely this seller is not abiding by FTC rules or advertising industry practices. As one advertising overseer noted, "That angle (BOGO) is virtually always a scam because that "free" second item isn't truly free at all. Despite new technology, the old adage still applies...Buyer beware!"

But wait...what's next?

Pitchmen have been selling us things for many years and will likely continue to do so. Technology has changed how we shop and buy and that trend will continue. What's next for how pitchmen will sell? Maybe Ron Popeil's words are prophetic: "...wait, there's more."