Part 11

Cable Address: Gincubes

April 14, 1922.

DEAR RUSSELL: Here are our letterheads. How do you like them? I am sending some to the hospital so you can use them for any letters you may need to write. Show them to the nurses and get their reaction. The more they circulate, the better.

This is just to tell you that I am going out of town for a little rest over the week-end. We have got things pretty well lined up so far. I shall be glad when you get back so we can visit together for I want your advice. You understand advertising men better than I do, I guess. To me, a great deal of their jargon is a mystery. What, for instance, do you think of the enclosed one that has just come to me from the Gray Matter Agency? Does it mean anything?

Miss Balboa, by the way, is somewhat upset by a remark made by your Miss Cumnor, about our error in spelling the name of the Hospital. I’m afraid the mistake was due to my wrong pronunciation, which she misunderstood.

As ever, NICHOLAS RIBSTONE.

N.R./D.B. (Encl.)

IX

[_Enclosure, sent by Mr. Ribstone to Mr. Russell, being a letter from the Gray Matter Advertising Agency._]

MY DEAR MR. RIBSTONE: Obviously you intend, ultimately at any rate, to have a nation-wide, or even world-wide, distribution for the Ginger Cubes. You are going to need a large merchandising staff. I wish to enlist your interest in our newly created Department of Salesmanizing. Let us train your representatives before they go on the road, and instil into the personnel just those qualities of enthusiasm and confidence that go to make not mere salesmen, but Ambassadors of Commerce.

I solicit the pleasure of convincing you on this topic; in the meantime let me briefly state the nutshell of our theory.

In our Salesmanizing School, which is really a kind of Graduate College of the Selling Arts, we seek to drive out from the student all negative and minus thoughts, ideas of possible failure, business depression, etc., and to substitute robust energizing concepts, positive and plus in their nature. Many a man has come to us doubtful about his own selling abilities, doubtful about the general condition of trade, doubtful about economics and literature and even theology. When they leave us, after a three weeks’ course under Mr. Harvey K. Tidaholm, they have pronounced convictions.

You wish to have your product--the Ginger Cubes--marketed swiftly, cleanly, universally. There are four steps in this process. The commodity must be

(1) Institutionalized (2) Publicized (3) Distributionized (4) Internationalized

To bring this about, your representative personnel must be

(a) Humanized } (b) Stabilized } = SALESMANIZED (c) Energized }

It is on such matters as these that Consumer Preference and Dealer Convictionability are based.

I should like very much to have our Mr. Harvey K. Tidaholm discuss this matter with you. I know that your reaction will be enthusiastic.

Yours faithfully, GEO. W. GRAY, Technical Director, Gray Matter Advertising Service.

X

[_A letter from Nicholas Ribstone to George W. Gray._]

DEAR MR. GRAY: I am just leaving town for a few days rest. All decisions have been postponized until my advertising manager returns. He is now hospitalized. I will confer with you as soon as I am re-urbanized.

Yours truly, (Signed, in absence, with rubber stamp.) NICHOLAS RIBSTONE.

N.R./D.B.

XI

[_An article in LOZENGE AND PASTILLE, the weekly trade journal of the throat tablet trade._]

THE VALUE OF THE CUBICAL FORM FOR MEDICATED CANDIES

BY BEN F. MENTHOL,

Secretary of National Lozenge Men’s Chamber of Commerce.

A great deal of talk has been roused in lozenge circles by the formation of the Ginger Cubes Corporation, to manufacture and distribute a new product called the Ginger Cubes. Mr. Nicholas Ribstone, the head of the enterprise, while reticent as to details, admits that he hopes to spring a surprise on the world of bronchial tablets and breath-perfumers. We understand that the Ginger Cubes, while more in the general nature of a confection than a medical preparation, are based on a careful pharmacal formula, and will go before the public on an appeal at least partly therapeutic.

But what interests us is, that Mr. Ribstone’s venture again brings up the necessity of standardizing the shape of the medicated sweet, if lozenge men are ever to get back to genuine prosperity. At present the lozenge and jujube world is in a state of wild disorder and lack of intelligent coöperation. Post-war deflation has not been followed by anything constructive. Lozenge men are cutting one another’s throats instead of healing the public’s. Mr. Ribstone, unconsciously, has put his finger on a vital spot in the lozenge industry.

Hitherto the trade has manufactured its products mainly in four shapes:

(1) Square tablet (2) Round tablet (3) Spherical (4) Oval

It will be evident, however, that for close packing and neat appearance, the cube is undoubtedly an attractive shape. It is well worth consideration on the part of the trade whether a general adoption of the cube would not be advantageous. Moreover, a great economy could be effected by standardizing cartons and containers. How can the present debilitating fluctuations be ironed out while the whole industry is proceeding on a basis of mere individualism? We do not wish to disparage competition, which is the life of trade, but to advocate a higher form of coöperating competition. The lozenge trade owes it as a duty to humanity to take its part in the general stabilizing and soothing movement. The inflamed throat of Commerce can never be healed until lozenge men get together. There is no reason why the breath-sweetener clique should be so jealous of the digestive wing, both suspicious of larynx and bronchial men. We hope that at the convention in June these matters can be taken up and constructively dealt with.

XII

[_A letter from Mr. Gray of the Gray Matter Advertising Agency to Nicholas Ribstone, proprietor of the Ginger Cubes._]

MY DEAR MR. RIBSTONE: I do not wish to seem too insistent, but I am so interested in the success of the Ginger Cubes that I feel it is my duty to inform you of the tested methods in which prosperity has been attained by other manufacturers.

I am so confident of your eventually deciding to place your advertising account in our hands that I went ahead last week and had our Laboratory of Merchandising Survey conduct a preliminary clinic in the local field. Of course, you understand that you are not obligated in any way; but I felt that this was the most useful mode of helping you to envisage your problem.

Just a word about our Merchandising Survey work, which is headed by Mr. Henry W. Geniall. Mr. Geniall is a man who knows how to talk to dealers in their own language; he is a born sales engineer. He began selling in 1892 and has never stopped; though now he sells service instead of commodities. He is the author of a book which has run through fifteen editions, including the Scandinavian, entitled _How to Meet and Dominate Your Fellow Men_, an autographed copy of which I am having forwarded to you.

The principle of our Merchandising Survey is to conduct a preliminary investigation of markets, in a representative field and on the highest plane of detached observation. Our Merchandising Surveyors are not to be confused with the street men employed by the less professional agencies. Most of them are college graduates; they are so tactful and genteel that they are welcomed by the dealers as valuable counsellors and coöperators; very often they are asked to stay to supper.

The survey we conducted shows conclusively that there is going to be a big market for Ginger Cubes if they are well publicized. We drew up the inclosed printed blank and questionnaired 100 druggists in the uptown section, just as a preliminary test. I have selected the inclosed at random from the returns, to show you the kind of thing. The others are being bound in a folder, which I will have much pleasure to lay before you on your return to the office, together with a tabulated analysis.

It is a pleasure to be able to put at your disposal all the resources of Gray Matter Service.

Faithfully yours, GEO. W. GRAY.

Technical Director, Gray Matter Advertising Service.

XIII

[_Confidential Report of an interview with a druggist by a Merchandising Surveyor from the Gray Matter Advertising Agency._]

INTERVIEW

_Name_--Higgly-Piggly Drug Store.

_Address_--673 Sunnyside Ave.

_Type of Store_--Chain.

_Party Interviewed_--J. K. Liquorice, Mgr.

_Subject of Interview_--Ginger Cubes Canvass.

_Approachtalk Used_--General Coöperation No. 3, as per Mr. Geniall’s suggestion.

* * * * *

_What Brands of the following Does Dealer Sell_--(List in order of popularity):

_Throat Tablets_--Roko, Southern Soothers, Tussicules. _Cough Drops_--Lady Larynx, Lotos Cone. _Confectionery Laxatives_--Sugar Chew, Cascarilla. _Appetizer Lozenges_--Paprika Pastilles, Curlicues. _Digestive Tablets_--Stowaways, Cul de Sacs. _Medicated Candies_--Sweeto, Spicy Chiplets, Candoids. _Breath Purifiers_--Balmozone, Pineapple Hints, Clover Slices.

_To What Does Dealer Attribute Success of These Best Sellers?_ Newspaper Advertising.

_Does He Push Any Particular Brands? If so, Which?_ No Answer.

_What Methods of Manufacturers’ Promotion Produces Best Result for the Dealer?_ Newspaper Advertising.

_What per cent. of his customers suffer from Sore Throat?_ Ten per cent. in winter.

_What per cent. from bad digestion?_ No answer.

_What per cent. from cacopneumonia (bad breath)?_ No answer.

_What per cent. prefer a doctor’s prescription to a patent medicine?_ Fifty per cent.

_What Does Dealer think of prospects of Ginger Cubes?_ Excellent; thinks name very “catchy.”

_Does Dealer approve the subtitle “Digestive Dice”?_ Yes.

_Will He Use Window Display Material?_ Sure.

_General Remarks_--Dealer suggests we investigate what effect the Ginger Cubes will have on smokers’ tongue; says ginger bites the tongue after smoking, would not have percentage of ginger too powerful.

_Name of Surveyor_--Richmond Brown.

_Analyzed by_ Henry W. Geniall.

XIV

[_A letter from Allan Russell, Advertising Manager of the Ginger Cubes Corporation, to his employer, Mr. Nicholas Ribstone._]

Hippocrates Hospital, April 18.

DEAR BOSS: This is just to say that I am so much better I expect to get out of here in a few days, and hope to be back “on the job” next week. Dr. Nichevo says that I have made surprising progress and thinks it is due to Miss Cumnor’s fine care. She is certainly some nurse. She and I have gone over those papers you sent me, from the Gray Matter people, very carefully. Miss Cumnor’s reaction is that we ought to go slow about signing up with them. She thinks, and I am inclined to agree with her, that they talk tripe. By the way, you didn’t reply to my suggestion about our giving her a job in the office. She is certainly a remarkable woman.

Yours always, RUSSELL.

XV

[_A letter from Mr. Nicholas Ribstone to his secretary, Miss Daisy Balboa._]

Kill Kare Kountry Klub, Wayanda, Conn., April 18.

DEAR MISS BALBOA: I have decided to stay here a few days longer for the fishing. Nothing much can be done in the office until Mr. Russell returns, and it just happens that one of the big drug jobbers is staying at this place and it will do no harm for me to get to know him in a social way. Thanks for telling me about the Gray Matter portfolio. I am interested to know that you are impressed by their enthusiasm. But every one is enthusiastic when they go out fishing for a big one.

Look here, instead of mailing the Gray Matter stuff, why not run up here with it yourself? I will get you a reservation at the Bonhomie Inn, which is near this club, and then we can go over the papers together. There’s a train that leaves Grand Central at 4:20. The little change would do you good, and there are several matters on which I wish to get your reaction.

Sincerely yours, NICHOLAS RIBSTONE.

XVI

[_A letter from Miss Balboa to Mr. Russell._]

DEAR MR. RUSSELL: Mr. Ribstone is still away, but I am going up to the country this afternoon to take him some papers, including your letter of yesterday. We’ll all be mighty glad to see you when you get back.

Faithfully yours, DAISY BALBOA.

XVII

[_A letter from Mr. Gray, of Gray Matter Service, to Mr. Ribstone, proprietor of the Ginger Cubes._]

MY DEAR MR. RIBSTONE: I was glad to get your note from Kill Kare Kountry Klub, and to hear that you have been taking a few days’ recreation. You will return, I am confident, much refreshed and eager to take up the problems that confront us.

I have been a little disappointed at not getting a definite authorization from you to go ahead with our plans. We have had tentative advances from other possible clients in this same general field, but I have put them off, desiring not to take on any accounts that might possibly conflict with the Ginger Cubes. To be perfectly frank, the thing that has appealed to me about Ginger Cubes is the bully opportunity for public service in a big way, and the chance to institutionalize a product whose possibilities have filled the members of our organization with unusual enthusiasm.

Ever since we first began talking institutional advertising for Ginger Cubes, a real thought impression has been epitomizing itself in my mind, and our Department of Cumulative Service has been giving the matter special study and analytical constructive investigation. We have been going right back to fundamentals on this proposition, studying the different sides of the problem along all its different angles. It will indeed be a source of satisfaction if we are accorded the opportunity to work with you. Our Mr. Geniall was saying in conference yesterday, “I am convinced I would rather be associated with the Ginger Cubes Corporation than any other company I know of, because what I have heard of the quality of men that make up that organization and the quality of service they would expect convinces me it would be an educative experience to coöperate with that firm. The product-attributes of their Ginger Cubes fill me with enthusiasm, and I feel that if they were our clients we could work for them as personal friends, and not in any cold-blooded businesslike fashion.”

That is the way we want you, Mr. Ribstone, to feel towards our organization.

It is not our desire to merely build a number of advertisements which may be combined together in a more or less connected series by some such device as art treatment. Art is all very well as a handmaiden of advertising, but for a monumental campaign you need the inspiration of a Big Idea, a genuinely dominating thought that will clarionize every piece of copy and tie the whole together in a culminating increment of public consciousness.

Advertising is either Product-Advertising or Institutional-Advertising. The functions of the first are obvious--

A. Function is to sell product

B. Means of accomplishment are

(1) Directly presenting the product to the market

(2) Urging the market to accept the product

But Institutional-Advertising is far more psychological. Here enters the supreme function of the merchandising arts, to create consumer “good-will.” This may be defined as encouraging consumer-benevolence, that is, educating the public to a sense of subjective interest in the entire business, and a conscious awareness of benefit therefrom. A feeling of friendly satisfaction engendered by Knowledge, Understanding and Appreciation is the inception of this consumer-benevolence.

The various factors that jointly and severally enter into these great merchandising truths I will not insist upon. But it would give me great satisfaction if you and Mr. Russell would meet the members of our organization and talk the whole matter over frankly and fully. Mr. Russell and your good self and the writer ought to get together in the near future for a long, serious talk on the whole proposition. We could not do nearly so well for you if our headquarters were not in New York, where we can have daily intimate conference with your organization headquarters. Our psychological director for the Chicago Territory, Mr. Alfred Ampere, has been so stimulated by what he has heard of your plans, that he wires me asking to be transferred to New York if our proposition goes through. I am inclined to favour appointing him as chief contact man, so that he could be summoned at any time within twenty minutes if a conference were called.

The objectives are all clearly defined, and we are ready to go to work. This is simply to assure you of my own personal appreciation of the splendid energy and fighting spirit your organization exhibits, and to hope that from the very inception of the Ginger Cubes we may be accorded an opportunity to coöperate in the public educationalization which is the real satisfaction of the advertising profession.

Cordially yours, GEO. W. GRAY.

Technical Director, Gray Matter Advertising Agency.

XVIII

[_Story in the New York Lens, April 23, written by the star humorous reporter._]

CUPID COMES TO DOCTORS’ AID

HOSPITAL ROMANCE CULMINATES IN PATIENT WEDDING PRETTY NURSE

Allan Russell, advertising man, left Hippocrates Hospital yesterday afternoon, completely cured of a stubborn case of nervous debility that at first puzzled the doctors. With him, in a taxicab, was Miss Candida Cumnor, one of the nurses, still in her uniform. They went to the Little Church Around the Corner and were married. After the ceremony, Mrs. Russell took her husband’s temperature with a clinical thermometer. It was Centigrade A, or whatever the normal reading is. She did not test his pulse, which was probably excusably fluttered. Even a hardened reporter, who horned in on this story by accident, was stirred by the sight of the bride in her crisp white linen. She has golden-bronzy hair and indigo eyes, or they looked that way in the twilight of the church. But what’s the use? She is now Mrs. Russell.

During Mr. Russell’s illness Miss Candida had charge of the case. She sympathized with his business problem--Dr. Nichevo, the Hippocrates expert on nervous mechanics, said that he had been run down by too constant intercourse with advertising agencies. She took his temperature soothingly with that cold little glass tube. But what she took away with one hand she gave back with the other. When her palm floated like a water-lily across his commerce-heated brow his mind grew calm, but his heart was caloric. As he became stronger she assisted him with advertising layouts which were spread on the bed, and they pored over them together. Why is it, we wonder, that reporters never have time to be taken ill?

Mr. Russell is Advertising Manager of the Ginger Cubes Corporation. He and his wife expect to spend their honeymoon hunting an apartment.

“Cupid is the best doctor,” said Mr. Russell as they left the church. “I intend to keep the thermometer as a souvenir.”

XIX

[_A letter from Nicholas Ribstone, proprietor of the Ginger Cubes, to Allan Russell._]

Bonhomie Inn, April 23.

DEAR RUSSELL: Forgive my delay in writing, but I have exciting news for you. Miss Balboa and I have decided to get married. You know that I have always felt we laboured under a handicap in not being able to get disinterested feminine reaction on the Cubes. Miss Balboa’s excellent sense will be a great help. I dare say you will be surprised--I am, myself. I had thought I was too old to become a Benedictine, but Miss Balboa has quite carried me off my feet. I must not be sentimental, however. We are going to be married here, to-morrow, very quietly.

I should have written to you before about Miss Cumnor. I thought rather well of your suggestion, but Miss Balboa has convinced me that it is better not to add to our staff just now, at any rate until we get things going.

I’m sending this to the office, as I guess you have left the hospital by now. Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Ribstone will be back in a few days.

Yours always, NICHOLAS RIBSTONE.

XX

[_Another letter from Mr. Ribstone._]

Bonhomie Inn, April 24.

DEAR RUSSELL: Just got your wire. Congratulations. It reaches me on the brink of the altar myself. My Lord, man, you should have tipped me off beforehand. It wasn’t necessary for both of us to get married in order to get wifely reactions on the Cubes. If I had known sooner--but anyhow, it’s all arranged now.

Miss Balboa has just about convinced me that we will do well to accept Gray Matter’s proposition. I wish I could consult you about this. Perhaps you had better get in touch with Gray and have the papers ready for signing when I get to the office.

We can exchange wedding presents later on. At the moment I’m too flustered to know just what happens next.

Yours, from the jumping-off place, NICHOLAS RIBSTONE.

XXI

[_A letter from Allan Russell to an old friend, known to us only as Bob._]

DEAR BOB: There’s the devil to pay in this office. I’ve just heard that old Ribstone has married Miss Balboa, his stenographer, in order to get her unbiassed reactions on business. Now I know very well that Candida and Mrs. Balboa-Ribstone will never get on together. This Balboa person, for instance, has argued old Rib into believing that the Gray Matter stuff is real. Candida doesn’t fall for it, says it’s the bunk. I won’t go on as Ad. Mgr. if Ribstone accepts the Gray Matter contract. I just want to ask you if there’s anything in your office that I could take a hand in. You know my experience and qualifications. Let me have a line.

Yrs. in haste, A. R.

XXII

[_An editorial in LOZENGE AND PASTILLE._]

We hear that Nicholas Ribstone, of the Ginger Cubes Corporation, has sold out his entire interest in the much-touted Cubes to the National Drug Novelties Company. This comes as quite a surprise to the trade, as no specialty in recent years had aroused so much advance interest as the Ginger Cubes. The figure paid by National Drug Novelties for the formula, stock in hand, and jobbing contracts already arranged, is said to be half a million dollars. We await with interest to hear just how Gartenbaum and his associates will develop this property. In the meantime the affair suggests some meditations on the desirability of guarding the medicated confectionery industry against the machinations of mere adventurers and speculators.

(Walk, Not Run, to Nearest Exit)

[Illustration]

THE EDITOR AT THE BALL GAME

(WORLD’S SERIES OPENING, 1922)

At the Polo Grounds yesterday $119,000 worth of baseball was played. Of that, however, only a meagre $60,000 or so went to the players. We wonder how much the accumulated sports writers got for writing about it. They are the real plutocrats of professional athletics.

We have long intimated our inflexible determination to learn how to be a sports writer--or, as he is usually called, a Scribe. This is to announce progress. We are getting promoted steadily. In the 1920 World’s Series we were high up in the stand. At the Dempsey-Carpentier liquidation we were not more than a parasang from the ring. We broke into the press box at the 1921 World’s Series, but only in the rearward allotments assigned to correspondents from Harrisburg and Des Moines.

But our stuff is beginning to be appreciated. We are gaining. Yesterday we found ourself actually below the sacred barrier--in the Second Row, right behind the Big Fellows. Down there we were positively almost on social terms (if we had ventured to speak to them) with chaps like Bill McGeehan and Grant Rice and Damon Runyon and Ring Lardner. Well, there are a lot of climbers in the world of sporting literature.