Jun 29, 2009

Ogilvy who?



People, an advertising/marketing icon has left the building way before last call.

Billy Mays was the embodiment of advertising's purest form: while most of us rack our brains night after night trying to come up with creative, out-of-the-box, gregarious, witty, engaging, yogurt-worthy ways of selling crap, Mays actually got the job done by yelling and overacting the truth. A ture practioner of the KISS method of marketing (Keep It Simple, Stupid), his schtick was all about see-it-to-believe it. Forget about high concept strategies - just show me what the thing does and how much it cost. Unique selling proposition? Whatever!
I'll miss those 2:30 a.m. infomercials and that kick-ass beard.

If only we could all be so bold.

RIP, Billy Mays

6 comments:

Peter Oehlkers said...

Interestingly, Ogilvy seems to have had a soft spot for direct response practitioners, accusing "general advertising" types of never having "tasted blood."

Here's the classic clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Br2KSsaTzUc

Me said...

Ah Billy. I will miss your enthusiasm. Kaboom, my friend. Kaboom.

Unknown said...

I don't think I ever really appreciated how meticulously groomed that beard was. Remington should add a "perfect fuckin' beard" setting on all their trimmers from now on.

Me said...

By the way... you said "gregarious".

Talk about bad memories, man. Shivers. Shivers.

RestrictionsApply said...

AC: my eyes are awash in tears... tears of laughter...

Joker said...

@ Peter: Classic clip is true. For all the smack we might talk about Ogilvy, it's always refreshing to see what he said or wrote because the man was beyond honest and didn't really buy into the entire bullshit that is advertising.

@ Me: He was BillMayzing. Let's put it this way, few men could keep so many men and women awake past 2 AM without the use of drugs or hookers.

@ Alex: Dude, he HAD to have a secret product he never made public or had a prosthetic beard because it was too astro turf pristine to be ignored.

@ Res: Definitely the death of another Icon. We should make a who's got the best infomercial.

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