ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 13, 1997 TAG: 9704140121
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF.
SOURCE: TED ANTHONY ASSOCIATED PRESS
``He invented what we do,'' says Steve Bryant, who hosts a kitchen-appliance and cooking show on QVC, a home-shopping network that is essentially a 24-hour infomercial.
On a sunny morning, in a sprawling compound in one of Southern California's most exclusive neighborhoods, Ron Popeil - true to form - is slicing and dicing.
This day, however, his tool is not a Veg-O-Matic but a remote control.
The inventor-salesman credited by many of his peers with devising the method of direct-response TV advertising that allowed the infomercial to exist is chopping away at his latest ``Incredible Inventions'' spot - for the Popeil Automatic Pasta and Sausage Maker. It's 28:30; CNBC wants it a minute shorter.
It's tough.
``Need that. Need that. Need that,'' Popeil says, holding a stopwatch in his left fist and fast-forwarding with his right finger. He is sitting at the counter of the Ronco test kitchen, where the infomercial was filmed.
Nowadays, 40 years after he worked the five-and-dime and county-fair circuits of the Midwest to hawk his inventor father's products, Popeil is still doing the same thing. But he's hardly a holdout; he's changed with the times. And, technology being what it is, the huckster atop the soapbox has become the consummate infomercial guy.
``He invented what we do,'' says Steve Bryant, who hosts a kitchen-appliance and cooking show on QVC, a home-shopping network that is essentially a 24-hour infomercial.
In a world of quick-cut video where some commercials are down to 10 seconds, the infomercial is a backlash of sorts - a full, often narrative-structured ad pitch that sucks viewers in gradually rather than smacking them upside the head.
And, though infomercials are emerging from their toddlerhood with some of the same elaborate techniques used in traditional commercials and even prime-time programs, Popeil holds out with pure product demonstrations - the kind he did at county fairs 40 years ago.
``Very simply, he's adapted,'' says Michael T. Elliott, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Missouri St. Louis, who has researched infomercials and the people who watch them.
Infomercials - program-length TV advertisements - existed in the 1950s as simply long ads. But the Federal Communications Commission slapped limits on advertising time in 1963, and commercials got shorter.
In 1984, the Reagan administration deregulated television advertising, and the infomercial officially came into being. All over the country, people started making programs to hawk products - shows that looked much like what Popeil used to do in his old Chop-O-Matic ads.
Today, the infomercial business is what one analyst calls ``a Wild West show.'' Celebrities are hawking cosmetics, self-made millionaires are peddling get-rich-quick guides and pitchpeople are using quick-cuts and narrative storytelling to sell everything from juicers to roll-up toolboxes to video karaoke machines.
But, despite facing all comers, from Dionne Warwick to Lyle Waggoner to Susan Powter's ``Stop the Insanity!'' to ``Mr. Megamemory,'' Popeil's appeal somehow endured.
``I would take a Ron Popeil and put a camera in front of him any day over a slick production,'' says Steve Dworman, publisher of the Infomercial Marketing Report, a trade publication.
``Take the food dehydrator,'' Dworman says. ``There were other dehydrators on the market, but he's the one who got it launched on television. If you look at his shows, it's basically Ron absolutely unquestionably believing in everything that he is doing. And that belief and excitement carries through the television screen.''
Now, bigger companies are entering the infomercial business, Popeil says, jacking up prices so independent business people with good products can't break in. His solution, which fits with his philosophy: Do both your infomercial and your placement yourself.
``You have to deal with higher prices and smaller markets, but you're in control,'' he says.
Popeil's hallmark is realism, and he insists none of his infomercials are scripted. He simply brings in people who already own the product and talks to them. He even kept in one guy who stuttered because it seemed genuine.
He has one clear favorite: an effusive lady in his food dehydrator infomercial whose husband was stationed on the USS Kitty Hawk, an aircraft carrier, somewhere in the Pacific.
``She said that when she communicates with her husband, which is not that frequently, he doesn't say, `Hello darling, how are you,''' Popeil says. ``He says, `Send more jerky!' You can't WRITE that kind of material.''
LENGTH: Medium: 89 linesby CNB