Of the 8 posts so far, this the 2nd one that’s complimentary rather than critical.  Which is generous, seeing as far less than ¼ of advertising is good.

Vince Offer is the greatest thing to happen to advertising since Andre Citroën took an unfinished skeletal building and actually made it serve a purpose.

As TV spots get further detached from reality, it sometimes seems that the only way for an advertiser (or its agency) to differentiate is to add levels of abstraction. Of course that doesn’t differentiate the product, but rather the message, which is an enormous part of the problem.

Offer manages to cram more reasons to buy the Shamwow into 2 minutes than most companies can in an entire cross-platform campaign.

Every product or service should submit to the Offer Test, which asks:

“If you had to write a TV spot in which Vince Offer sells your product, what would it look/sound like?”

But, you contest, my product doesn’t lend itself to his style of loud and abrasive pitchmanship.
Nonsense. Offer only provides the form. You still provide the content. Here’s the script from the spot that made Offer a household name – in the kitchen, the bathroom, even the garage:

Hi, it’s Vince with Shamwow. You’ll be saying “wow” every time you use this towel. It’s like a chamois, it’s like a towel, it’s like a sponge. A regular towel doesn’t work wet; this works wet, or dry. This is for the house, the car, the boat, the RV. Shamwow holds 20 times its weight in liquid.

Look at this: it just does the work. Why do you want to work twice as hard? Doesn’t drip, doesn’t make a mess. Wring it out, you wash it in the washing machine. Made in Germany – you know the Germans always make good stuff. You can cut it in half – use one as a bath mat, drain your dishes with the other one.  Use one as a towel – Olympic divers, they use it as a towel. Look at that, completely dry.

Put a wet sweater, roll it up, it dries your sweaters.

Here’s some cola. Wine, coffee, cola, pet stains – not only is the damage going to be on top, there’s your mildew. That is going to smell – see that?

The most absorbe– we’re going to do this in real time. Look at this. Put it on a spill, turn it over, without even putting any pressure, 50% of the cola, right there. You following me, camera guy? The other 50%, the cola starts to come up. No other towel’s going to do that. It acts like a vacuum. And look at this, virtually dry on the bottom. See what I’m telling you? Shamwow, you’ll be saying “wow” every time.
(break)
You’re going to spend $20 every month on paper towels anyway. You’re throwing your money away. The Mini-Shamwows are for everything, for everyday use.
This lasts 10 years, this lasts a week. I don’t know, it sells itself.
The Shamwow sells for $19.95, but you get one for the house, one for the car, 2 for the kitchen and bathroom…but if you call now, within the next 20 minutes because we can’t do this all day, you’ll get a 2nd set absolutely free. So that’s 8 Shamwows for $19.95.

It comes with a 10-year warranty. Here’s how to order.

Every second of this commercial is devoted to one purpose – identifying the benefit of the product.

What will your $20 get you?
-evaporation of inevitable spills with minimal effort
-cash in your pocket, as the warranty lasts long enough to save $2400 in paper towel expenses (according to Vince’s liberal math.)

Think about your product. What would you fill a 2-minute spot with? Do you even know enough features about your product to do so?

Contrast the Shamwow spot with a recent offering from CapitalOne, America’s least inspiring national marketer.

CapitalOne has enlisted the talent of some of the most prominent agencies in the world – DDBO, McCann-Erickson – to produce dozens of spots, each one unwatchable.

Take the latest in the CapitalOne cavalcade of self-conscious hilarity.

Never mind that the spot barely mentions how to buy the product. (You’ll probably have to watch it again, but the website appears at the end. You almost certainly didn’t notice it because there are 4 typefaces on the page and the URL appears at the bottom of the screen, in the smallest of the 4 typefaces, and has to compete for your attention with the incongruous sight of a guy in angel wings on a beach and another guy dancing around in a Speedo while covered in stinging jellyfish.)

Not until the second half of the spot are we finally informed of the product’s benefits – unquantifiable “low rates” coupled with “great rewards”. Contrast that with Vince Offer, who starts demonstrating the benefits of the Shamwow the moment his spot begins.

Were Vince to demean himself by going into business with CapitalOne, the spot would/should sound something like this (leaving the visual to your imagination):

Hi, it’s Vince with Capital One.

You might never buy anything with cash again after you use this card. It’s quick, it’s convenient, you just whip it out and show it to the clerk behind the counter, boom.

Use it at the supermarket, use it at the gas station, use it online to buy plane tickets with. Try doing that with a wad of bills.

You’ll save money compared to using other credit cards. Get the CapitalOne card now, and you won’t pay interest for the first 6 months. And 6 months from now, you’re still only going to pay 10.9%. That’s nothing.

Transfer your balances, too. You got a big balance on another card, eating away at your savings every month? Transfer it to your CapitalOne card, you pay that same rate – just 10.9%.

Other credit card companies charge 15, 18, 20%. Why do you want to pay twice as much in interest charges?

The CapitalOne card comes from a big, successful bank – a Fortune 500 company. They’ve been around for 20 years, so you know they’re not going to disappear anytime soon.

You like rewards? Listen to these rewards. You can get travel rewards, earn miles every time you buy something, earn enough to take a trip to Australia. You can earn points, too. Get points every time you buy something, build up enough of them and redeem them when you shop.
Or cash back. 1% cash back on everything you buy, plus a bonus at the end of the year.

You get all that just for shopping.

Make your own card. Choose from dozens of designs at our Card Lab. Or do it yourself. Upload a picture of your kids, your dog, the Grand Canyon. Go to the Card Lab and make it happen. There it is, right there on the card. You’ll see it every time you use it, a design no one else has.

The CapitalOne card starts at just $19. You might even be able to get it free.

Call 800-251-5745 right now. Better yet, visit Capital One.com.

The Offer Test. Either pass it, or expect people to pass on your product.