You're Going to Have an Exciting Life Now

Enter Vince Offer. You probably know him as the fast talking, cockeyed, beheadsetted pitchman for Sham Wow!, a direct-marketed shammy that is supposed to be extremely absorbant and last a lifetime ten years. While it seems like a decent product, the truly impressive aspect of the commercial is the pitch: 

Are you following me, camera guy? The first time I saw this, I instantly noticed the pitchman, and felt sorry for him. I said to myself, here's another out of work actor hocking more As-Seen-On-TV crap. But something was different. What could it be? The outrageous claims? The stupid headset? The fauxhawk? The smaller right eye? I couldn't really put my finger on it, and I didn't give it much more thought, until today.

Today I saw another commercial featuring the same guy, this time selling a kitchen dicing tool elegantly dubbed The Slapchop.  As bold and yes, groundless as his claims were before, they were nothing compared to the statements he makes in the following video:

In case you missed any of the classic claims made in this commercial, here are a few:

All this for $20? Amazing, Vince! What's even more amazing is this guy's hustle. It's totally genuine in the sense that he really is a hustler; A couple of years ago he made a film called Underground Comedy Movie, and inspired by the success of Girls Gone Wild, launched a direct-sales ad campaign on TV. Vince sued everyone he possibly could, for copyright infringement, for breach of contract, adding to the list of lawsuits he had already filed. Having failed as a comedian and succeeded at direct marketing, Mr. Offer decided to put his skills to use selling a more marketable product than his comedy, which brings us to Sham Wow.

Although many comparisons to Billy Mays (the reigning king of infomercial pitchmen) were inevitable, none capture the true brilliance of Offer. If you look at the list of statements he made in the Slapchop spot, you see there is the usual level of condescension found in direct-market ads. Here is a product that will fix your life! The thing about Offer, though, is that he knows it's there, and he is counting on our skepticism, and he lobs a grenade or two. "You're going to love my nuts" is clearly there to seed some laughter and to embrace the ridiculousness of these ads, but once he's got you laughing, he's got you listening. In fact, by writing this post I'm playing right into his hands. 

When I see Billy Mays in action, I see a throwback to the 50s. It was an era where the correlation between material satisfaction and true happiness was not in question. When Mays bellows, he is earnestly, really telling you that this product (a cleaner, a pan to make small hamburgers, or a different cleaner) will improve your quality of life. With Vince Offer, things aren't so cut and dry. Whether he know it or not, every other commercial attempts to convince us of things we know to be untrue on some level, yet they never let up their facade. They throw pretty models at us, show us fantasy situations, offer computer-generated models that are rarely representative of the product's actual capacity, and lie, lie, lie. Unless you're 90 or older, you've grown up with this, and you've learned to take advertising with a grain of salt. Offer knows this, and rather than attempting to overpower your doubts with a great pitch, he has created a caricature of the scummy pitchman that will promise you the world, and by striking a note that is at once parodic and frank, he circumvents your doubts and gets you to pay attention. He doesn't work around your scorn, he invites it, embraces it, mocks it, soaks it up, wrings it out, chops it to bits, and serves it on a salad.