So the most burning question for me is one that MsRobyn didn’t address: Is there really a time limit on those special offers? Like the one Vince trots out in the ShamWow commercials: “But if you call now, within the next 20 minutes – 'cause we can’t do this all day…”
I suspect it’s just a pitch, and that the commercials are airing so often that it’s always “the next 20 minutes” after a broadcast of them. =)
Powers &8^]
“If you call in the next five minutes, we’ll throw in an extra five bottles for free!!!”
Examine this statement and tell me what it says will happen if you call after 6 minutes have passed. 
Exactly. It does not say, “If you don’t call in the next 5 minutes, we won’t give you 2389402374 bottles for free.”
People assume the converse of many statements given in plain English to be true precisely because they’re often true due to context. For instance, borrowing an example from a textbook on the subject, suppose my teacher told me “If you don’t score at least 70% in the class, you will fail.” It’s perfectly valid given the situation to assume if I score high enough I won’t fail, but that’s not what the statement says at all. The assumption is that low score => fail means that high score => pass works due to the context of the statement despite being the logical converse. And if any teacher said that and ended up failing people who scored above 70, there’d be an uproar unless the teacher had given some other criteria for failing (If you cheat, you fail, eg) despite not actually violating the logical premise.
It’s just another instance of a direct marketer’s pitch that’s completely true, but utterly meaningless.
I don’t think they can enforce the time limit, simply because they run each commercial on so many channels throughout the day. Unless they produce one commercial for each channel with a different phone number, there’s really no way to track it. It’s far cheaper to just give you an extra whatever than it would be to have so many different commercials.
This isn’t something they’re all that eager to admit.
I saw a 1/2-hour show on Philip Kives, the Canadian founder of “K-Tel”, and I believe it suggested that he was first to take advantage of selling crap on TV (including crap invented by Seymour Popeil, Ron’s father) and that Ron was following his lead.
Actually, they do produce different phone numbers for each station/network. That’s how they track them. They also get the times the spots are scheduled to air from the station/networks. That’s how they know if the outlet is working for them…frequently clients will book spots for a month, then cancel after two weeks because it’s not generating enough leads.
Whether or not they won’t give you the freebies if you don’t call within the time limit I don’t know.
Also, don’t Ginsu Knives pre-date Ronco?
As I said, the mechanics aren’t something that mail-order companies are all that eager to share. My mother has extensive experience with ordering, and she’s always gotten the free goodies whenever she’s ordered, so I’m thinking the time limit is just a pressure tactic to get people to call immediately to make the impulse buy.
Also, Ronco’s advertising dates to the 1960s, while Ginsu was established sometime in the 1970s. Ginsu also used longer commercials and infomercials, something Ronco didn’t do until relatively recently. So Ronco deserves the credit for the hyperactive 30- and 60-second spots.
Yes, isn’t that what we decided “the exception that proves the rule” means? That the explicit statement of an exception implies that it’s the only such exception?
I thought as much, although Vince’s addendum of “we can’t do this all day” would then be false, wouldn’t it?
Powers &8^]
Define “this”. 
I just figure statements of the type to be between Sardonicism and Skullduggery.
Here is one that gets me:
Do you want to sleep without snoring?
It’s possible with nosnoreiprex!
Now, what EXACTLY do they mean by “It’s possible” ?
Most people, most of the time, WILL sleep with out snoring.
This one time, this one guy made it through 8 hours of sleeping with out snoring, thanks to nosnoreiprex. It is possible to become snore free with nosnoreiprex.
My personal favorite, as a selling tool, is to add–“none sold to dealers!”
Right. :rolleyes:
While the Veg-O-Matic is famous, similar ads had run on TV for many years before. I remember ads for a magic glass cutter in the 1950s (and continued to run for years). Popeil is hardly the inventor of the mail-order TV ad concept.
I didn’t say that Popeil’s commercials were the first ever for mail order. I said they’re the first to use a shorter commercial with a rapid-fire delivery. Before Popeil hit the airwaves, mail-order commercials were longer, but they still existed.
That type of commercial was exactly the type I was also talking about. Your standard one minute commercial. (Shorter commercials of any sort weren’t common then.) And even with a minute they had to talk and cut fast to fit it all in. Of course there was no 800 number so it was all mail only. But a standard format commercial.
The one I like, and actually kinda gives itself away:
"If the phone lines are busy, please keep trying."
Now, the immediate message tries to imply that the item being sold over the phone is overly popular.
However, they are** NOT **saying “Our Phone Lines are currently busy”
It inflates the perceived popularity of the item. I doubt the phone lines are busy at all.
Epitome of wishful thinking.
I think the article was fairly well writtenin that I had noticed several of the products at WalMart and I had figured out that most of the act-now-and-get-free products were worth about a bit less than the “handling” part of shipping and handling.
WalMart does occasionally have a indistinguishable variation of the not-sold-in-stores product.
But WalMart does not often do $19,95. They more often do 19.87 or some number that does not scream out sucker you are paying 20 bucks.
The Ronco commercials were the earliest for which I could find a reliable citation. I’m not discounting the fact that there could have been earlier commercials.
My personal favorite is “Act now limited quantity available” :rolleyes:
Does anyone buy that Franklin Mint crap like the 911 coins or the classic car replicas? They were supposed to be a “limited offer while supplies last” and they’re still hawking them… 8 years later.
BTW Great column MsRobyn.
/slight hijack …A tip for tracking who is selling your info.
Years ago I applied for a credit card at a major department store and someone at their end read my middle initial incorrectly. Subsequently, I realized that some of the junk mail, spam, telemarketers, etc. were using this initial. Naturally, out of curiosity, whenever I filled out an application or gave personal information, I would assign a different middle name and/or initial to that account. For example, for Zellers my middle initial is Z.
You’d be very surprised which “trusted” instititions are sharing your info…:eek:
The beauty of “limited quantity available” is that it is inherently ALWAYS true. Infinite amounts don’t exist in real life.
I'm not so sure, I think they figured out early on that these weren't the "hotcakes" they thought, so they stopped production and there is a limited number that after 8 years they're wishing was a helluva lot lower.:D