Philip Kives

Early life

Philip Kives was born on 12 February 1929, as the third of four children, on a small farm, near the town of Oungre, Saskatchewan. His parents were originally from Eastern Europe; because of hardships suffered by Jewish people, the family was relocated to Turkey by the Jewish Colonization Organization. In 1927, they immigrated to western Canada and worked a small farm. During the Great Depression, this part of Canada was seriously afflicted by drought, causing frequent crop failures. The family struggled financially, and along with other farmers in the area lived on welfare for many years. The family home was without electricity and running water. In his memoirs Kives tells of milking cows from the age of five and making butter in a hand churn.

In his youth, Kives showed an aptitude as a salesman. At the age of 8, he set up a trapline; he sold his own furs, as well as those he bought from other children at his school, at fur auctions. He used the money to buy clothing.

Adult life

In 1946, Kives left Saskatchewan and moved to Winnipeg. There, he sold iceboxes, drove a taxi and delivery truck, was a short order cook, and finished high school. In 1953, at the age of 24, he was hired as a door-to-door salesman in the city and nearby country towns, and succeeded in selling sewing machines and stainless steel cookware. Two years later, he and his brother Theodore moved to Atlantic City, New Jersey, selling kitchen items on the Boardwalk beside other pitchmen, including Ed McMahon, and developing his salesmanship.

In 1961, Kives traveled to New York City where he worked at Macy's Department Store doing floor demonstrations of a new revolutionary product: the non-stick Teflon frying pan. He returned to Canada and made the first of many deals with Eaton's Department Store: he offered to pay for television advertising of the frying pan, if Eaton's agreed to stock it. Many pans were sold, but the product itself was a failure because, after a time, the Teflon coating came off during cooking. Kives' marketing formula consisted of live two-and-a-half minute TV commercials, in which he recreated the fast-talking "hard sell" that he had developed in the United States. He is often credited with creating what would come to be known as the "infomercial". The success of this formula led Kives to set up his own company, K-Tel.

He was the uncle of journalist Bartley Kives.

Kives was a long time resident of Winnipeg. He died 27 April 2016, at the age of 87.