Arthur Schiff
Arthur Schiff (1 May 1940 – 24 August 2006) was one of the least known but most influential promoters of American kitsch products.

Schiff ran his own company and ingenious marketing campaigns for 23 years. During his long career in advertising, he produced over 1800 direct response TV infomercials, including the Steakhouse Onion Machine, Ambervision Sunglasses and the Shiwala car mop. One of the most famous products worked on by Schiff is the line of Ginsu knives, during his three-year term of employment as Creative Director at legendary direct marketing firm Dial Media, founded By Ed Valenti and Barry Becher in 1975, in Warwick, Rhode Island.

Schiff's commercials gained a degree of notoriety for their effective use of catchphrases, including his signature creation "But wait, there's more!" He also coined several other widely used and often parodied phrases used in infomercials today, including ""Isn't that amazing?" "Isn't that a Clever Cleaver!"" and "Act now and you'll also receive ... "

The history of the Ginsu product line can be traced back to 1978, when Schiff's employer Edward Valenti was looking for the best way to market a line of "ordinary" kitchen knives with the rather dull brand name "Quikut". Working as part of a creative team that included Valenti and Becher, Schiff rebranded this product as Ginsu. Schiff recalled some years later, "I went to sleep that night, still wrestling with the problem," he wrote, in typically fervid style. "And then it happened! I bolted out of bed at three o'clock in the morning and yelled, 'Eureka! I've got it. Ginsu!' I wrote the bizarre word down on a piece of paper and went back to sleep. When I got up again four hours later, the paper was still there and that strange word was still on it. I stuffed it into my shirt pocket and headed off to work."

The combination of Schiff's unusual Japanese sounding name for the knives with product demonstrations and copy lines previously developed by Valenti and Becher, many of which had been used to sell their first three multi-million selling products (Miracle Painter, Miracle Duster and Miracle Slicer) on TV prior to Schiff's employment, seemed to launch Ginsu to an even higher level of success and consumer retention.

Much like the ice cream brand Häagen-Dazs, the Ginsu name was nonsense, but nevertheless extremely effective in associating the product image as a "samurai sword" for the kitchen. The partners (Valenti and Becher) hired a local Japanese exchange student to appear as a chef. The most famous Ginsu television advertisement began with a hand karate-chopping a two-by-four board. According to the opening copy co-written by Valenti and Schiff, "In Japan, the hand can be used like a knife. But this method doesn't work with a tomato" (cut to Valenti's hand karate chopping...and squashing...a tomato).

Schiff died of lung cancer in Coral Springs, Florida in 2006.
Q131711
kitsch
Concept
Q1662452
infomercial
Concept
Q4928299
Steakhouse Onion Machine
Concept
Q217541
Sunglasses
Concept
Q1139861
car mop
Concept
Q3046824
Ginsu
MISC
Q599312
knives
Concept
None
Dial Media
UNK
Q5335510
Ed Valenti
PER
Q3046824
Barry Becher
MISC
Q49195
Warwick, Rhode Island
LOC
Q2708515
catchphrase
Concept
Q938509
Cleaver
Concept
Q5287
Japanese
ORG
Q4157632
product demonstration
UNK
Q13233
ice cream
Concept
Q1143333
Häagen-Dazs
ORG
Q38142
samurai
Concept
Q375471
exchange student
Concept
Q11419
karate
Concept
None
two-by-four board
UNK
Q17
Japan
LOC
Q23501
tomato
Concept
Q47912
lung cancer
Concept
Q505557
Coral Springs, Florida
LOC
Q4800240
Arthur Schiff
PER
1940-05-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1 May 1940
DATE
2006-08-24T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
24 August 2006
DATE
1800-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1800
DATE
1975-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1975
DATE
1978-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1978
DATE
2006-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
2006
DATE
+23^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
23
NUMBER
date of birth
cause of death
manufacturer