The phenomenon called “as seen on tv products” owes its roots to possibly one product, The Ginsu Knife. The advertisement for this product set the tone and the standard for all hard sell products that followed it.
The Ginsu Knife advertisement first appeared in 1978. It was revolutionary in the sense that the American public had never seen anything like it before. Besides it’s general hard sell approach it featured the now well know phrases such as “Amazing”, “How much would you pay? Don’t answer!”, “Call now! Operators are standing by!”and “But wait! There’s more!”.Even though these phrases are now part of everyday had sell commercials, back in the day they had an electrifying effect. In a six year period, the commercials helped to sell almost 3 million knife sets.
Since then many as seen on tv products have come our way. You can find anything from electronics to garden tools to books; basically a lot of things. Some of these products are great and have a lot of merit. But quite a few of them are absolute hogwash. Take the category of as seen on tv exercise equipment for instance. There are plenty of products in here that do deliver on their promises. But many of them are fake;they only give you the impression of doing something productive and are quite possibly dangerous to use. Always do a bit of research on the product before you buy it and do not give into the impulse to buy immediately.