Ed McMahon's Ability to Sell Anything: His Techniques that Ads Seldom Use

Back in the late 80's, the late great Ed McMahon had a book out on the market called "Superselling" that gave away all of his tricks of the trade in how he was able to become the nation's greatest pitchman. Today, you'd have to look on the used book market to find a copy, even though his ability to sell us everything from Alpo dog food to life insurance policies was easy enough to figure out if you were paying attention or studying marketing. It's easy enough to write off most pitchmen as being full of bull puckey without appreciating the nuances of how the more effective ones operate. McMahon was undeniably the master of selling technique in bringing a more conversational way of making you think a product was the greatest thing ever invented.

Unfortunately, that type of technique appears to be heading toward the realm of archaic now with the passing of the man who could even sell Johnny Carson to the masses for thirty years in the opening seconds of "The Tonight Show."

While there isn't much evidence available in the media now, Ed McMahon displayed his warmest selling technique doing live commercials directly on "The Tonight Show" that ultimately became non-existent by the later years of the show. But if you're lucky enough to see one of the older shows in its entirety from the 1960's or 70's, you'd have a chance to see Ed pitching every possible product backstage numerous times during the then 90-minute running time. The only rare piece of media I found where you can see that example for free is unsurprisingly on Youtube where I discovered a complete "Tonight Show" from Dec. 17, 1969. This was the night Tiny Tim was married on the show and subsequently the most-watched episode in the series' history so far. (See Part 1 of the entire show here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlllwAuDLTw.)

Here, you have a rare chance to see all of the commercials on that broadcast, plus Ed McMahon hawking everything from Pepto-Bismol to a very 60's-designed Schick shaving cream pump. All of that gives you an opportunity to see how McMahon sold other products outside of the ones we younger crowd grew up seeing him pitch--namely Budweiser, the now defunct American Family Sweepstakes or the more recent cable ad for Premier walk-in bathtubs for the elderly. Through them all, we see a sales approach that's friendly and inviting rather than assaulting your senses with aneurysm-inducing images or with a voice as loud (or, ok, projecting) as Billy Mays'.

Back in the older days of TV during the 50's and 60's, most hosts of variety shows would do live spots pitching myriad products, though in a particularly unique way. If it was an edible product (nope, no one pulling a Letterman and guzzling a bottle of cleaning fluid), a charismatic host would almost always demonstrate tasting the product in front of the camera with a typical exclamation of "yummmm!" Ed McMahon would do this occasionally in the early days of "The Tonight Show" and made it believable. Just like his laugh, you believed he truly thought the products he was pitching were worthy of a joyful response.
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Something happened along the way when tasting an edible product on live TV became relegated to pre-produced commercials, if also disappearing there once Madison Avenue went in a vague, different direction. Eventually, McMahon stopped doing live commercials on "The Tonight Show", yet the show ironically held onto the tradition of Johnny Carson holding up products as a lead-in to a commercial. That was during the 80's and 90's when Ed McMahon's advertising style was no longer desirable to sell Alpo dog food or even Budweiser beer. Instead, his affable, conversational approach was taken to sell things that required more attention in order to be believed.

We're talking here about life insurance (both Colonial Penn and Conseco Direct Life) or his offbeat ad for Cash4Gold. Of course, the later ads became tongue-in-cheek rather than a serious look into the camera to explain why you need to be covered by an insurance plan that may, in reality, not have the best premiums in the world. In a depressing way, it's too bad McMahon's serious, conversational selling style became so ripe for parody that he had to do comedic commercials in order to be taken seriously.

Yes, most people can see through the older selling style as being manipulative. Perhaps, though, McMahon proved his acting skills by making his older selling pitches more believable. After all, he did act seriously in a few good movies.

Even though Ed was known for his bravado in his role as announcer, his conversational selling style was a direct antithesis of what developed in the 90's and 2000's where the Billy Mays style of selling on TV took over. If you haven't already turned your volume down with an ad selling mail-order products from barker Billy Mays, then you must be hard of hearing. The irony here is that Ed McMahon influenced the Mays style of walking the boardwalk as a barker to hawk anything within the alphabetical listing of products made in China.

Despite McMahon being a barker at one time, he understood the concept of gaining attention of the viewer through normal conversation and not raising the voice. TV is not a boardwalk. Only, Billy Mays hasn't accepted that reality, outside the reality that he still sells a million buckets of OxiClean and OrangeGlo. At the same time, you have millions who probably haven't bought it because of Mays' barker style.
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Many who knew Ed McMahon said he was the nicest guy in Hollywood. It isn't hyperbole to say he conveyed that through his sales pitches better than any pitchman in TV history. Sure, we knew he also held a wink of an eye over his corniest sales pitches sometimes astutely brought up by Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show." Nevertheless, McMahon brought a pitchman style that's disappearing now as the U.S. keeps upholding more forceful ways to sell anything.

As I noted in a past article about the effectiveness of quieter movie trailers to gain a viewer's attention, so too should TV advertising go back to the same style. We see it occasionally, but having it done by someone in a convincing Ed McMahon way is probably stuck in history.

Edit: This article was written before the untimely death of Billy Mays on June 28, 2009. All my condolences go out to his family and friends.

Sources:

http://www.amazon.com/Ed-McMahons-Superselling-Performance-Techniques/dp/B000HMJQ5Q/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245913959&sr=1-11

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1442174/the_loudness_and_frenetic_pace_of_movie.html?cat=40