Word: ginsu
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Billy was first inspired to learn the art of the pitch after enjoying a Ginsu-knife demonstration on an Atlantic City, N.J., boardwalk. He realized that an eye-to-eye pitch has to be honest and salable to the core. It was this skill--along with verbal agility, stamina and likability--that he used to get consumers to buy products they never knew they needed. He carried the torch for vintage pitchmen, and I had hoped that he would continue to do so for a new generation. But his pitch was cut short far too soon...
...Like Ginsu knives and the George Foreman grill, the Snuggie has become synonymous with direct-response advertising, the preferred industry parlance for commercials that feature a toll-free number for placing orders. And thanks to the recession, such "as seen on TV" companies are purchasing more airtime for chump change...
...ideas - sprawl-inducing highways and bridges to nowhere, ethanol plants and pipelines that accelerate global warming, tax breaks for overleveraged McMansion builders and burdensome new long-term federal entitlements - would be worse than mere waste. It would be smarter to buy every American an iPod, a set of Ginsu knives and 600 Subway foot-longs...
...Like Ginsu knives or the George Foreman grill, the Snuggie has become synonymous with "direct-response advertising" - the preferred industry parlance for commercials that feature a toll-free 800 number for placing orders. And thanks to the recession, such "as-seen-on-TV" companies are purchasing more air time for chump change...
...Great Society, but also because the Democrats seemed to have lost confidence in their own ideas. They had lapsed into an intellectually sloppy identity politics, subdividing themselves by race, gender and sexual preference. They fixed on narrow-gauge programs rather than broad themes. All too often they sounded like Ginsu-knife salesmen on late-night cable television: "And if you buy our children's health-care plan, we'll throw in - absolutely free! - a $4,000 college-tuition tax credit. Plus, this special onetime offer: universal day care!" To be sure, the Republicans had their own special interests and slovenly...