Ron Popeil, who died peacefully last week at 86, was memorialized in obituaries across the globe as an infomercial icon.
Ron Popeil is much more than that. He is a pop culture icon, whose legacy transcends the DRTV business he gets credit for inventing along with so many successful household gadgets.
When you are worthy of parody on Saturday Night Live, that might be the definitive validation of a career and persona built in large part by grabbing the attention of late-night TV viewers.
Sure, Popeil’s pitch style and many of his products would elicit their share of chuckles. The billions of dollars in sales his products raked in over some six decades, however, are no laughing matter.
Popeil, constantly smiling on TV and with that distinctive deep voice recognizable to millions of Baby Boomers, was equal parts emphatic and disarming. It was a formula he perfected to get viewers to run for their credit cards when they least expected.
He was a salesman in search of an audience to sell. Always.
Popeil’s pioneering TV spots in the late 1950s for his Chop-O-Matic kitchen helper set the template for the modern infomercial business. And his introduction of the Showtime Rotisserie and BBQ in the late 1990s helped cement long-form infomercials as a primetime driver of mainstream small appliance and housewares retail sales.
If you were around to witness Popeil in his prime, you should already appreciate the impact he had on direct-to-consumer marketing before that was even a big thing. It would serve those newer to this business well to study up on Popeil for added perspective on how to get someone to buy something they don’t know they need… in less than a minute.
Popeil sent me one of the first Showtime Rotisseries off the line. It was accompanied by a handwritten note from Popeil urging me to give it a try because he was so certain about the satisfaction it would provide. He also said to consider it a wedding gift, even after learning I got married some five years earlier.
It was pure Ron Popeil, oozing with sincerity… and salesmanship. Always selling.
I still use that original Showtime Rotisserie to this day. And yes, I can still set it and forget it.
Thanks, Ron. Your ultimate audience awaits.
