Word: gimmick
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...final years in the major leagues, Ball Four Author Jim Bouton, 43, was always looking for a gimmick to extend his pitching career, and as an ex-ballplayer, he has not changed much. His idea for Big League Chew, a bestselling chewing plug-like pouch of shredded gum for sand-lot Harvey Kuenns, made Bouton rich. And he has now moved on to the diamond status symbol that really separates the men from the boys: baseball cards. (The men are on them, and the boys collect them.) Bouton has come up with a proletarian variation on the real thing, individually...
Asked about supply-side economics, Stigler said: "It's not an orthodox economic category. It's a gimmick." With that, press aides abruptly concluded the briefing as reporters shouted, "Let him speak! Let him speak...
...that social order "does not come from nature." Neither does much of what goes into society's consumer goods. Far too often, as Physicians Stephen Barrett and Victor Herbert write in Vitamins & "Health " Foods: The Great American Hustle, the natural label is nothing but "a magic sales gimmick." The resulting confusion may not be a mortal danger, but it is hardly innocent. Unchecked, it is bound to make it harder for rising generations to maintain a clear notion of the truly natural to which mankind indeed remains tied. Not long ago, a Chiffon margarine commercial...
Connecticut Salesman A. Donald Fass, 50, was not just an ordinary door-to-door peddler. He was named Salesman of the Year in 1979 by the Atlanta-based Rollins Protective Services. As it turned out, Fass had a special gimmick to make a sale. Like many other businessmen, he would first show off his wares during a home visit while chatting with prospects about such sensitive information as their vacation schedules and the location of their valuables. Then, when the occupants were away, Fass would return and make off with the family jewels, the silver and anything else of worth...
Bracelets made of cardboard hardly sound like stepping-out gear, but in California they are fast becoming fashionable. Recession Ware bracelets, offered in novelty shops for $2.50 each, are the latest gimmick from master Marketer Stephen Askin, 43, of Los Angeles. During the Iranian hostage crisis, Askin sold Ayatullah Dartboards. More recently he has developed aerosol cans of water labeled Nuclear Fallout Repellant. Even zanier is his Deeley Bobber, a glitter-coated headset that looks like insect antennae. In the past ten weeks an estimated 2 million bobbers have been sold at $2.99 each...