Word: pitchman
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Billy Mays knew how to sell. He was the consummate pitchman, rising from boardwalks to state fairs to short-form direct-response ads. By the time he died of heart disease on June 28 at 50, he was on television more than 400 times a week. To an aspiring inventor or an entrepreneur, his oratory was the difference between a pipe dream and a blockbuster...
...time NBA All-Star and pillar of the Chinese national team, his angular face can be seen on everything in China from Coke billboards to Visa ads. His annual endorsement income last year was estimated at $36 million, more than triple that of the next highest-paid Chinese sports pitchman, hurdler Liu Xiang...
...book!), Madden noted that he had been so focused on football that he'd become estranged from his family, at one point thinking his 16-year-old son was twelve. But he didn't stay out of the limelight for long: in the early 1980s he became an iconic pitchman for Miller Lite, appearing in the beer's famous "tastes great, less filling" ad campaign. Madden's barely restrained enthusiasm made him a natural salesman and he showed a knack for making anything - even foot fungus treatment - seem exciting: ("Boom! Tough-Actin' Tinactin...
...sold yet? Yeah, neither were we. Incredibly, though, this guy claims that companies from IBM to Walt Disney have paid him to drum up enthusiasm for their products. The Wall Street Journal even ran a piece (in 1998, ahem) about the pitchman's skills at addressing crowds with "just a whiff of cheerful megalomania." Sure, Bauer's probably living in a cardboard box made of $4 business cards (foil-stamped!) right now, but you have to admire the man's spirit. Or maybe just giggle at it. Because life is not about being liked. It's about being effective...
...think one hooker scandal would be enough to ruin the ShamWow (and its pitchman) forever, but you'd be wrong. Even the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn is trying to cash in on the ubiquity of the super-absorbent towel infomercial with a YouTube parody designed to lure younger, tech-savvy souls to its services in New York. Dubbed "SoulWow," the commercial spoof features "Father Vic" (whose resemblance to ShamWow spokesman Vince Shlomi is downright eerie) hawking the only product that lets you "clean yourself from the inside...