We Can't Be Living In The Past.
From The Desk Of
Drumlin S Boulder
"We need a new advertising slogan", announced Symon, our marketing MBA
whiz kid at Portable Holes' weekly Monday morning management meeting,
"which encapsulates our mission, core competency, what we stand for, and
how we position our product in the market place".
Reading one of his text books again, I thought snidely, and the others
must have been thinking something similar. I noticed our office manager
and my number one Holdsidahl-deGedder, Gloria, almost spilled her
double mocha cappucino, while The Big Guy was busy hiding behind
adjusting his power tie, something he always did when he was agitated
and about to disagree with someone. Carrie Balance, who takes care of
the numbers was impatient to get through the meeting I knew because I
kinda knew what her next couple of weeks looked like before third end.
Being a private company, we decided to not do quarters because they came
around too fast. Still a major set of things to do so I knew she didn't
care .
So
I could have interrupted him right then and there because we've all been
trying to beat Symon's fancy business school education out of him ever
since he joined the firm eight months ago, and I did agree our current
slogan, "You'll dig our holes", was too much of an inside wink to our first
trade show in San Francisco back in the early seventies. And now that
there are more of us in this space, especially Stacking Pits and
Cavities, our primary competitor who are about a 45 minute drive away,
we have to sound modern. And I did promise Symon some time to pitch his
thinking.
I've learned to listen ever since I got married. Of course it took
some time since I'm a guy and women require rapt attentive listening
between the lines, something us guys are not used to doing, but I
learned the extra effort pays off in less grief and better perqs, with
my Bene anyways. And at work listening is awesome. I try to wait until
someone is done before I let my mouth try and catch up with my thinking.
So I tried real hard to let Symon keep the floor with appropriate eye
contact with The Big Guy and we all listened, except Pronto our shipping
manager, who I knew was still tuned out trying to figure out how he was
going to ship 10,000 units of our top selling high altitude models to
Boeing without clearing US customs first.
"Damn The Big Guy for suggesting we buy the &!}*{(*&( ?!! flange
couplings for our control units off shore", Pronto snarled at me last
Friday after having accosted me in the company cafeteria where I was
happily snarfing a bowl of Magda's great chili with Carrie and Slide
Rule.
"Yes damn The Big Guy", I'd agreed, but these Cuban parts,
&!}*{(*&( ?%% as they may be, were still cheaper, and we're determined
to take sales away from our arch rivals, Stacking Pits & Cavities.
As Symon droned on I got thinking about price and advertising and how in
the world could those cereal companies charge so much money for some
fibre and a lot of air, or in my case, lots of fibre, damn that doctor.
By now I'd missed the first part of Symon's presentation while
meandering through my thoughts, but I arrived back just after he said
"and those dynamic stop elements are integral to comprehension and
retention of a complete experience".
Now I wasn't going to show everybody how lost I was, so I just nodded in
unison with the rest of the room, although it was too late when I
figured out they might just also be falling asleep after what I had just
heard.
But everybody woke up quickly when Symon announced he'd need $50,000
dollars to engage a local agency to come up with a new slogan, which he
figured was a bargain compared to big city rates.
I had already foregone my annual trip to Kapuskasing and the new
plumbing at the cottage, when our controller Carrie Balance stood up to
leave and gave her
usual practical input.
"Why don't we simply search the internet and look through some magazines
and steal some neat slogans, or get out a Webster's dictionary and look
for unique words to string together"? "I mean where do advertising
agencies get their ideas anyway", she continued, "whenever a good idea
is dreamt up it becomes a trend as everyone climbs aboard the
bandwagon".
This seemed to me a great solution. Symon expends his creative energy to
come up with a new slogan and if he finds something that satisfies his
desire for a dynamic stop, I just might find out what that is. I also
won't have to worry about my septic tank backing up into my cottage
basement and ruining my summer, and in the end we can might simply tell
the world what we do, that is, we make better holes portable.
So we voted to let Symon search the internet and a dictionary, and
suggested he should also look in Bartlett's Book of Famous Quotations.
Gloria volunteered to help him, which suits me fine as she was there in
San Francisco and originally came up with our slogan, so if there is
going to be a change, she’s going to have to be sold first. And The Big
Guy stopped adjusting his power tie
Now I'm hoping for a good week. The only impediment is figuring out how
to get rid of the Spanish words on those Cuban parts. Damn Yankees!
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