Death won’t still the voice of Billy Mays or his mighty powers of persuasion. Viewers will continue to find the boisterous, bearded TV pitchman hawking household products for the indefinite future.
And at least one of his commercials is being introduced posthumously.
“Just stretch, wrap and it fuses fast,” says Mays, demonstrating a product called Mighty Tape on a kitchen drain pipe in the new commercial. Moments later, he’s seen, still wearing his signature sport shirt and khaki slacks but accessorized with scuba gear, as he repairs a hole in another diver’s air hose underwater using Mighty Tape.
The commercial will begin airing July 20. Mays’ advertising for other products in the Mighty brand line returned to the air earlier this week. The commercials were pulled after Mays’ death June 28 of an apparent heart attack.
“Our feeling is, everyone wants to have Billy go on,” said Bill McAlister, president of Media Enterprises, a sales and marketing company based in Trevose, Penn. “This is what he would have wanted.”
Besides Media Enterprises, the 50-year-old Mays had worked with several other companies as the yell-and-sell spokesman for products with rousing names like OxiClean, Awesome Auger, WashMatik and Orange Glo.
It’s not yet certain which among Mays’ product pitches will continue to be broadcast, and for how long, said his attorney, Roger Pliakas.
“We’re waiting to hear what the companies want to do,” said Pliakis, who declined to specify the firms with which Mays was associated when he died.
“It’s not a legal conversation but an informal conversation” with each company, Pliakas said. “We don’t know all the specifics. We’re just hoping it’s all done in a tasteful manner.”
On Thursday at 9 p.m. EDT, Discovery Channel will air a one-hour documentary, “Pitchman: A Tribute to Billy Mays.” Mays had been featured in a 12-part series on the network called “Pitchmen.”
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More