Discovery Channel's Pitchmen

My favorite television shows are the ones that teach me something while entertaining me. This is exactly the goal of the Discovery Channel, and PitchMen succeeds brilliantly in presenting the fundamentals of marketing in such a way that you don't even realize you're learning them. Marketing is one of those topics that is much more approachable if you have a visual reference, particularly one that stays with you, and PitchMen provides plenty of real-life, useable concepts that can easily be transferred to marketing efforts in any area of life, whether you're selling your home, your writing or yourself.

Have you ever watched any of those goofy infomercials with Billy Mays? That enthusiastic guy with the impossibly pitch-black hair and beard, bellowing and jumping around like a squirrel on steroids, promoting this Veggie Mega-Chopper or this Best-Ever Lint Cleaner? Here he has teamed up with one Anthony Sullivan, an equally enthusiastic Englishman with boyish good looks, a somewhat abrasive manner and an irrepressible gift for banter. The two of them are instantly likeable as they alternately insult each other and kid around. These two seasoned salesmen locate people with ideas for inventions, interview them at length, hook them up with likely sources of capital, and then guide them through the intricate process of developing their product, and eventually promoting it onscreen and at trade shows.

PitchMen tugs relentlessly at your heartstrings. It fully exploits television's incredible storytelling potential, something not always available in an infomercial, to allow you access into the lives of these would-be inventors - their inspiration; the source of their drive; the source of their ideas. There's the seventeen-year-old inventor of the Spot Sucker, a device that can instantly take spots out of your clothes (yes, you read right -- the kid is seventeen). His single, unemployed mom is struggling to hold onto her home and keep the family afloat. See what I mean?

I found the business meetings, the ones where the inventors meet up with the guys who fund the projects, particularly fascinating. This is where the inventors learn the dollar value of what they've invented, the cost to produce it, and get valuable feedback on how to present it to the TV-viewing public. It's hard not to put yourself in the role of the inventor and begin to adopt the habit of seeing yourself objectively, a valuable habit for anyone seeking to market his or her product.

Before I ever laid eyes on this series, I must admit that the incredible money-making potential of TV infomercials was largely lost on me. I certainly was not unfamiliar with the concept - I can say without exaggeration that I have been bludgeoned with it hundreds of times. But PitchMen really made me understand it, and further grasp how a video segment filmed over a span of minutes can make people say, "I want that," and lunge for their phones to order it. Now, that's marketing.

Advertising is a tricky enterprise indeed, and when you condense it into a few minutes, it gets even trickier. The task of charming, then persuading, one's audience becomes akin to a fine art, and exactly how these two gentlemen manage to do it successfully in such a seemingly effortless manner, again and again, is perhaps the real story here. Or maybe it's their successful marketing of themselves as television celebrities. I don't really care - I don't have any kind of merit system for who should be on TV or not, as the case may be. And I'm grateful to Mr. Mays and Mr. Sullivan for the marketing lessons. Thanks, PitchMen! I'll buy one - here's my credit card number!

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/pitchmen/pitchmen.html

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/pitchmen/hsw/psychology-selling.html