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FOREWORD: Some months ago, Barbara and I were on a
cruise of the Mexican Riviera and I noticed a small
cargo ship seemingly half sunk over against a wharf.
I took a picture of the ship. Months later, I wrote
the short story - featured in three parts - that you
see here.
Old ship in Manzanillo, Mexico, that
seemed like it was worthy of a story.
Manzanillo
A Short
Story in 3 Parts by
by Claude Hall
Chapter 3
"I'm surprised," said Juan. "A house!"
Juan stepped aside so he could knock. But the door
opened and a man stood there with a kid at his knee.
"Amigo!" He immediately took the two burlap bags from
Juan.
"Juan, this is the Jose Hernandez family and this man
is Jose himself and his wife is going to invite us to
dinner or we shall never come this way again."
"A threat! This strange creature from the sea is
threatening us," said Jose as his wife came into the
room.
Her name was Carmina.
"Strange name for a strange woman," he told Juan.
"But wait until you taste her lobster. Prima!"
And it was. And the evening was pleasant. And after
it was over, Jose helped them load a chest of lobsters
and fresh fish onto the Santiago.
"You and Juan keep back a couple of fish for dinner
tomorrow," Jose ordered.
"He's giving me orders," he told Juan.
"Sounds like a very good order to me," Juan said. "I
may be hungry again by then. But maybe not."
He patted his stomach and complimented Carmina on her
cooking as she fluttered about like a pigeon.
Once the chest was aboard the Santiago and lashed
down, Juan went to bed.
"No sleeping on the deck tonight," Juan said. "I have
a hunch it's going to get damp out here."
After the youth left, he did not go to bed right away.
Instead, he pulled a canvas chair onto the deck and
enjoyed the fog for a while. The grey mist floated by
in drifts. Now and then, he could see the lights of
the Jose Hernandez villa. His own life could have
been like that. A fisherman. But he'd been restless
when he was younger. Bothered, perhaps, by that old
dream of sailing far away seas. That dream, too, was
hidden by the fog tonight. What else, he wondered,
was hidden out there?
Long before dawn, once again, he and the Santiago had
made for the open sea and Juan was on deck. Juan
handed him a bowl of oatmeal.
"I might learn to like this stuff," Juan said. "And I
might not."
The ocean today was choppy. The waves wore their
white hats, doffing them in foam that spewed away on
the wind. The Santiago had seen many waves such as
these. It was a brave battle that the ship, slowed
now, won as the day drifted into high noon and then
into the afternoon.
"I might learn to like this wave stuff before I learn
to like oatmeal," Juan said. He held onto the cabinet
in the bridge. "But probably not."
"Waves mean no harm. They are washing the sky," he
told Juan.
"I think they have washed me, too," Juan said.
"Did you study today?"
"Yes. I finished the Flaubert book and now I'm
reading 'War and Peace in the Global Village' by
Marshall McLuhan."
"That's a heavy book," he said.
"You've read it?" asked Juan. He seemed to be
slightly amazed.
"The days grow long at sea sometimes," he told the
youth.
"It is, indeed, a heavy book. Some pages, I have to
read twice. Some even more."
"Sometimes heavy books are better for you," he told
the youth. "A price you need to pay. That's where
education comes in handy. I did not understand the
book. I am sad about this, but I also realize that I
do not understand the ocean either. I like it, but I
do not understand it."
"I misled you about Flaubert yesterday," Juan said.
"While knowledge does come in many baskets, it was my
mother who suggested that I might enjoy Flaubert's
novel 'Madame Bovary'."
"Ah. Knowledge does, indeed, come in strange
baskets," he said. "Did you enjoy the novel?"
"I don't know yet. I think it's a novel one has to
think about for a while."
"Life is like that," he told Juan.
He also had to think about Maria. Reconsider some
things about this strange bird now intruding into his
life. Maybe she had changed over the years. Life can
do that sort of thing to you. Or a change of life.
In himself, he had noted that he was one thing in one
place and someone else entirely different in another
port. With Jose and his family, he was like some
visiting uncle. The child had climbed on his knee at
dinner. In Manzanillo, he had always been a recluse.
A pelican high aloft searching for a smooth wind.
That evening, they tied up to a small dock in a
village, dined on fish fried in a skillet with fresh
sliced tomatoes bought in a nearby market and
tortillas and refrito frijoles from a small
restaurant. They sat on the deck and watched a moon
hang fire in the dark sky.
"Do you know yet what it is that Flaubert was trying
to say?"
"Eagles have different kinds of life than rabbits,"
Juan said after thinking a moment.
"True, but even eagles need a nest I think. Flaubert,
that one, chose a strange nest."
The next day, the ice almost melted, they delivered
the lobsters and the fish of Jose Hernandez to a man
driving a truck who appeared at a dock in Ixtapa. The
truck driver paid in cash.
"That's a good bit of money," Juan said.
He folded the pesos, placed a rubber band around the
pesos, and handed the money to Juan. "Put this in the
cabinet drawer on the bridge. Belongs to Jose."
As he eased the Santiago away from shore, he noticed
Juan looking through a couple of the notebooks. There
were several of the notebooks in the drawer. Many
more in a container in the hold of the Santiago. His
life was little bird tracks in a notebook. He was no
eagle. Certainly not a condor. Perhaps a sandpiper?
No. More than likely a seagull. Seagulls were
innocuous. Lived on the ocean. Friendly. He didn't
know what good seagulls did in the pattern of things,
but they probably were helpful. Could an old seagull
change? Maybe. The ocean was always changing. Was
he willing to change? What was so important about his
life before?
"Great deal of money here," Juan said.
"Now and then, I put some in a bank," he told the
youth.
"Good," said Juan.
"I don't know. I hope you're right."
A day later, they deposited the crates and the boxes
on a small village dock and waited until a truck came
for them.
This time, he let Juan collect the money and place it
away in the drawer.
"Do you know how much money is in the drawer?"
"No," he told the youth.
"Mucho," said Juan. "Shall I count it?"
"Some belongs to Jose, some to the man who shipped the
crates and boxes, some to an engine overhaul somewhere
down the line, some to other repairs. Some to fuel
for the engine. Food. A bottle of tequila now and
then. I only get to keep the leftovers. That's the
money I put in a bank. Leftovers."
His whole life had been leftovers, he thought.
"You know, of course, that my mother intends to paint
the Santiago."
"She wanted to impress you. Now that you're here and
have seen the Santiago, I thought she might lose the
idea."
"Not her, I think. I think she needs to paint this
ship. I don't know why."
"She is a strange bird, that one. I don't know much
about women. Women."
"Women," agreed Juan. "Not as easy to understand as
even Marshall McLuhan."
"Well, maybe she can paint the Santiago a pale
yellow," he said. "Although I don't like yellow very
much. Anything but pink. Ships have souls, you know.
The Santiago does not have a pink soul."
"I heard her say flamingo blue," Juan said.
"I don't know much about flamingo blue."
"I guess I'll hang around a day or two longer and
help, if you don't mind me sleeping on the Santiago.
There is no room for me in Papa Gallo."
"I don't mind. You're welcome on the Santiago any
time. Come aboard. Stay as long as you want. You
earn your salt. You can be a part-time sailor when
you're not in school. If you wish."
"Bueno," Juan said. "I would enjoy that. A sailor."
"You handled the waves well."
"How come you haven't painted the Santiago before
this?"
"It always looked good enough for me. But I suppose I
could have said that about a lot of things before
now."
"Strange. I feel the same way," Juan said. "The
waves have changed me, perhaps."
"Waves change. Maybe people change. I don't know."
"Where do we sail from here?"
"Home so your mother can paint the Santiago, if that
is what she wishes."
This time, they did not dine with Jose and his family,
but the fisherman insisted they take a couple of
filets from his catch of the day.
"So you are married now?" Jose asked as he placed his
earnings in his billfold. "Juan told me."
"Yes. She talks a lot. A magpie."
"Good life, though. Beats talking to the fish," Jose
said.
"I don't know," he told Jose. "I may not get a chance
to talk. But I guess the same could be said of fish."
Jose glanced at Juan. "Good kid there. Nice looking.
Pleasant. Strong."
"Thank you."
"I think you will need three filetes de pescado, old
friend."
"I think so," he said to Jose.
Before night fell, the Santiago was churning north by
northwest. And they did not pause. He had Juan take
the wheel while he grabbed some sleep. A little while
after dawn, they chugged through the harbor entrance
and entered the bay.
"Shall I go tell my mother we are home? I don't think
she expected us back this soon."
"First, we pay Senior the bearded one and then we take
our leftovers to the bank."
"Can you walk?"
"I can walk," he told Juan.
After the Santiago was anchored, he asked Juan to get
the money from the drawer, but to leave some.
"How much should I leave?"
"I don't know. I just leave some. Put some in your
pocket. Your salary. The leftovers are for the
bank."
"I think my mother intended to pay me. Just a few
pesos."
"I will do the paying," he said.
"Que mucho? In many ways, I think it is I who owe
you."
"You did well. Keep quite a bit. As long as we have
some leftovers for the bank."
"I think it's a good thing you married my mother. You
need someone to handle the money."
"Money is just leftovers," he said.
Only a slight twinge now, his leg, but walking seemed
to be no problem.
Along a narrow street, they found the bearded one in
the back of his shop.
"Thank you, captain. When do you sail again?"
"In a few days, I think," he said. "My new wife wants
to paint the Santiago first."
"Wives will do that sort of thing to you," he said.
"Well, let me know. I need a few things from Puerto
Vallarta. And I think Senor Vasquez down the street
has something to be delivered."
As they left the shop, Juan said, "So everyone calls
you captain."
"Only one or two. I don't know why."
"What do the others call you?"
"They don't talk to me," he said.
However, Senior Garcia at the bank was surprised when
he introduced himself.
"You mean to tell me that my life was saved by the
Juan Carlos Corral himself!"
Juan stood like a heron. Stiff. In shock.
"All I did was come in the dingy," he said to Senior
Garcia. "You and Senior Alvarez saved yourself."
"Not true," he told Juan. "This man pulled me and
then Alvarez from the rough waters. Hurt his leg
against my boat as it was sinking. How is the leg?"
"Fine."
Garcia the banker stared at him.
"The real Juan Carlos Corral! In person. My father
said he met you when you first opened a savings
account. How long ago? Ages! We all wondered about
you. Money appearing in an envelope a morning or two
a month. For years! You're a legend in this bank.
A legend. What can I do to help you? Just ask."
"I wonder if I could buy a house on the hill. Facing
the ocean."
"I'll call Alvarez. He'll know what to do. In fact,
I'll ask him to handle it personally. He'll be glad
to do so."
"Is there enough money?"
"Certainly. Principal and interest I would think
enough for twenty houses, if you wish. Maybe even the
entire hill. We have wondered for many, many years
just exactly who Juan Carlos Corral might be."
"And then I'd like to arrange a fund for Juan.."
".Juan Carlos Corral," said Juan.
".at a bank in Monterey so he can attend college
without worrying about money,"
"Easy. Consider it done. Let me phone Alvarez about a
hacienda," Garcia said.
While they waited, Juan asked: "Are you my father?"
"An old sailor like me?" he told the youth. "To be
honest, I don't know. I have decided, however, that I
like the idea of being a father. If you're concerned,
I would think that one father is probably as good as
another. Of course, I don't know this for sure."
"I'm suspicious. A sudden father. Why now?"
"I, too, am suspicious. The truth is that I don't
know. I'm just a sailor. Perhaps your mother thought
it was the right time."
"You mean she planned everything?"
"I've decided that she is very bright."
"Yes. I think that, too." Juan stared at him. "I
suppose I could use a father. I certainly enjoyed
sailing on the Santiago. Not the oatmeal, of course."
"And I have begun to believe that I need a son to help
on the Santiago when he's not in school," he told
Juan. "You handled the waves well. A man could be
proud of a son who handles waves."
Garcia returned. "Alvarez says he knows just the
place for you. He is leaving now to check it out. I
told him to meet you here at the bank."
"We have an errand to take care of first," he told
Garcia. "But we shall be back soon."
Maria seemed reluctant to quit her job.
"It's not a very good job," he told her as Juan
gathered her belongings from her room in the back of
the cantina.
They stood near the end of the bar in Papa Gallo.
"It's all that I have," Maria said. "When you get
old, it's difficult to find a job."
"You're now the wife of a sailor," he said. "It's not
a job, but I would think it's better than working in
the Papa Gallo."
He thought about asking her if Juan Carlos was really
his son. Then he decided that a man who has just been
given a son shouldn't question it. This was no doubt
a better son than he deserved. Anyway, he now had a
son and he didn't want to suddenly not have a son.
"You know you can call it quits and get a divorce as
soon as Juan returns to college," Maria said. "That
was the deal."
Ah! This, too, was interesting. He now had a wife.
A good cook. A woman who liked things clean and neat.
Someone who was more than likely well read. Such
wives were not easy to come by.
He'd already thought about this.
"Perhaps I'm not as big a fool as I used to be.
Anyway, no divorce," he said. "Juan pointed out that
you had no ring. We have cargo for Puerto Vallarta in
a few days. We will buy a wedding band in Puerto
Vallarta."
She seemed pleased about the wedding band.
She carried one of the suitcases. He carried another.
Juan struggled behind them with a cardboard box.
Alvarez met them at the bank in his car and took them
to see the house on the hill. A trellis almost hidden
by vines leaped across a shady patio. It was cool.
He could see a heron off in the sky. Distant
seagulls. His ocean.
"A good view of the water," Alvarez said.
The ocean looked calm and peaceful. No waves from up
here.
"Yes. I see the Santiago."
"Will the hacienda do?"
"It will do fine," Maria quickly told Alvarez. "That
is, of course, if my husband agrees."
She was smiling. She looked better when she smiled,
he thought. Not so much like a bird at all.
"It's fine," he told Alvarez.
Alvarez drove them to the dock.
"The house will be ready in a few days. Garcia will
handle the purchase. I'll have my wife buy furniture.
You will like it immensely."
"Thank you," Maria told Alvarez.
He and Maria and Juan rowed the dingy with Maria's
belongings out to the Santiago. Maria prepared dinner
with Jose's fillets.
"What color shall we paint the Santiago?" Maria asked
as they sat in canvas chairs on the deck and watched
the setting sun wash their distant hill in various
hues.
"No need to impress your son here anymore," he said.
"Ah, but I need to impress me," she said.
He stared at the distant hill. His new nest was up
there. But his life was still down here rising on the
afternoon tide of the harbor. No eagle. Definitely a
seagull. Seagulls rode the waves rather well, though.
And, of course, if things didn't work out, there was
always the Far East.
"I'm thinking about flamingo blue," he told his wife.
"If that color pleases you, Maria."
- 30 -
e-mail claude@claudehallonline.com
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December 18, 2006
Commentary
by
Claude Hall
KLIF's historic Balloon Drop
Promotion in downtown Dallas. Circa 50s. No, I can't see a
balloon in the picture...guess these people are waiting for the
next one...this rare photo was probably taken a few hours into
the promotion. For full details of the promotion, see "This
Business of Radio Programming" by Claude & Barbara Hall (Danoday.com
or Amazon.com). Photo given to me by the late Bill Stewart, at
the time national program director for McLendon Broadcasting.
Such promotions as this one and the legendary Chuck Blore Amoeba
Promotion soon became against the law. But promotions were a
vital part of radio as we used to know it.
PROMOTION
Promotion is not a "sometimes" nor "when/if" thing.
It must be as much a part of doing business in the
daily thinking of management as sales and accounts
receivables.
Any entity - whether just an ordinary shoe store or a
medium such as a radio station or a newspaper or a
person who is, in effect, a product - goes through a
life cycle if it survives the birth period. As surely
as something is born, it must also die. Playboy, as
we knew it, died. The truth is that several
"Playboys" have existed; it has evolved or been
rejuvenated or been born again several times. Each
"life," Playboy has gone through a cycle. Radio
station KLIF in Dallas went through a life cycle.
KMET in Los Angeles went through a life cycle. Both
of these stations could have been rejuvenated, as was
Playboy, and perhaps some would consider it
unfortunate that this was not the case. Playboy, too,
will eventually die. As did the old Saturday Evening
Post and the old Life.
The idea behind this article is, though the efforts of
promotion, to extend that life cycle not only as long
as possible, but to make it grander.
The first stage in that life cycle: ATTENTION.
Correlate this stage, if you will, to the early cries
of a baby. The baby has little or none other method
of communicating its wishes; it cries until someone
comes and pays attention to it and satisfies its wants
and needs.
This is the stage at which promotion stunts/events
work best; the more outlandish they are as a rule, the
greater the attention gained (i.e., the legendary
rattlesnake promotion in Tucson and other markets see
"This Business of Radio Programming," Amazon.com).
These stunts/events, of course, should fit within the
overall year-long (or longer) promotion design you
have developed for the business or product or service
and, naturally, fit the image of that particular
business, product, or service. This has not always
been the case. It should also be noted that "stunts"
usually gained their own publicity from their mere
uniqueness. Ivy Ledbetter Lee was one of the first to
not depend on a stunt, per se (though a planned event
was often a Lee modus operandi) and more on publicity
in one form or another. But one should never
overlook, and certainly not ignore, the value and
dramatic impact that promotion men have had in not
only the development of public relations, but also the
potential today for promotion stunts and events in a
designed public relations campaign.
The days of the legendary promotion man (and perhaps
we should qualify the statement, i.e., as we used to
know him) are virtually a thing of the past and, to
some extent, this is a pity. The specific discipline
is becoming more complex, more scientific, and
increasingly a matter of research as well as a factor
that much correlate to advancing technology. There
may still be people in some industries -
pharmaceutical drugs, music, books - who call
themselves promotion people, but their actual duties
usually do not entail entirely the work of promotion
and, in fact, often wanders far a field.
The old-time promotion man was often a character as
outlandish sometimes as the stunts he pulled. Many
became famous. Perhaps, legendary would be a
more-descriptive word. Some of these men became well
known in other fields or endeavors although it was
primarily their talents at promotion that contributed
vastly to their overall success. This was especially
true in radio. It was somewhat true, I suspect, of
P.T. Barnum.
Bennett Cerf, the publisher (Random House) and
collector of humor, once referred to the promotion man
- "Try and Stop Me" (149-154) - as "the barker selling
snake-oil remedies to the rubes at a carnival...judged
by the amount of free space he can wrangle in the
press, and the extent to which he can make a gullible
public fall for his subtle, and often completely
fictitious, propaganda."
One of the most outstanding promotion men in America
was the late Harry Reichenbach.
Harry Reichenbach, a former carnival man was,
according to Cerf, a "master of the art of
exploitation...he has been called 'the greatest single
force in American advertising and publicity since
Barnum'." Cerf was, without question, quite correct.
Back in the days when my grandparents were still
alive, they lived for many years on a farm in an
obscure sandy land area of Texas - the "heart" of the
state about 30 miles north and a bit east of Brady. I
remember as a child seeing a copy of a print of
"September Morn." As I recalled, it was a painting of
a woman standing nude in a lake, but, quite honestly,
nothing was visible and my grandmother, a holy roller
of the first water, evidently thought nothing vulgar
about the print.
Bennett Cerf says that Harry Reichenbach's most
conspicuous achievement was connected with that
innocuous third-rate painting - "September Morn." An
owner of a Broadway art store had seen the original in
Paris and thought it had commercial possibilities. He
ordered a vast supply of reproductions in assorted
sizes at a cost of more than $60,000. The
unpredictable American public, however, paid no
attention to "September Morn" and the dealer seemed
stuck with his entire investment.
Reichenbach - after the store hired him to promote the
painting - made it a best-seller within 24 hours!
First, he placed a large print of "September Morn" in
the dealer's window. Then he hired a dozen high
school kids; the kids were rehearsed. Reichenbach
promptly burst into the office of Anthony Comstock,
head of New York City's anti-vice squad and
self-appointed custodian of everyone's morals.
"Mr. Comstock," cried Reichenbach, "there's a vile
picture on display in a Broadway window and
schoolchildren are ogling it this very minute!"
Comstock grabbed his hat. Reichenbach followed as
Comstock ran out of the office and headed for the
dealer's store.
When the kids spotted Reichenbach heading their
direction, as rehearsed they began pointing at the
picture, smirking, and making obscene remarks about
it. Comstock charged into the store like an outraged
bull and had the dealer thrown into jail.
By the time the excitement and nationwide publicity
died down, "September Morn" was without question the
best-known painting in the United States and more than
2,000,000 reproductions of it were eventually sold.
Reichenbach in reality took advantage of an already
existing situation - Comstock had gained considerable
renown for his efforts against vice - and, literally,
designed a stunt that went counter to the prevailing
culture. This same approach has been used effectively
since to create attention. Bill Drake, a successful
radio station programming consultant of the 1960s and
1970s, concentrated on local records in programming
KHJ in Los Angeles and promoted local acts during the
days when all other radio stations were programming
Beatles and other British groups.
"We were being Beatled to death," Drake once stated in
an article in Billboard magazine.
So KHJ played new records by the Monkees and a new
group called Sonny & Cher. Cher may not realize it
today, but she owes a large part of her early success
to both the Beatles and Bill Drake.
Bill Randle, once a legendary radio personality in the
Cleveland area, said his success on the air was
because he usually went counter to the prevailing
culture.
Reichenbach revealed touches of genius in some of his
promotion stunts, according to Candice Fuhrman (79).
In those days, most of the movie studios were still
located in the New York City area and the salaries
were not all that extravagant. Silent movie star
Francis X. Bushman felt that he deserved a raise.
Bushman asked Reichenbach for help.
Reichenbach's promotion stunt was a simple one: He
took Bushman on a stroll through the streets of New
York to the studio headquarters. As they walked,
Reichenbach dropped hundreds of pennies behind them.
By the time he and Bushman arrived at the movie
studios, a huge crowd was following behind. The
studio heads were surprised and greatly impressed by
the size of Bushman's following. Bushman got the
raise.
This stunt may have served as "inspiration" years
later for Ivy Lee's "dime" promotion that turned old
man Rockefeller into a nice guy.
Some of Reichenbach's stunts were simple. Once, to
attract attention to a store, he covered a mere barrel
with wire netting and placed a small sign on the side
reading: "Danger, Snakes."
Another time, he boosted the business of a little
restaurant that had everything except customers by
placing a bowl of water in the window with a sign
reading, "The only living Brazilian invisible fish."
People stopped to see if they could spot the fish.
Soon, crowds gathered. Some swore they could see the
invisible fish because the water moved. Reichenbach
promptly hid a little electric fan in the corner to
blow ripples on the water.
"There it goes," someone would cry.
Then, for no known reason, people would go inside to
eat dinner. Business boomed for weeks. Reichenbach
later joked that the owner of the restaurant couldn't
stand prosperity; he tried to serve the invisible fish
as a course.
Reichenbach devised schemes that were more elaborate
as well. To promote a play called "Over the Hill," he
hired actors dressed in evening clothes to walk the
theater district of New York City between 42nd and
50th streets. One couple would state that they were on
their way to see "Over the Hill" and the other couple
would try to argue them out of it. Soon, hundreds of
people within earshot would be hearing about "Over the
Hill."
Promotion of movies was a natural for Harry
Reichenbach. He was later to do much of the publicity
and promotion for Metro Pictures Corporation, later to
blossom into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Once, he launched
and ran a whirlwind campaign that featured the slogan
"Can they keep it up?"
"What they were keeping up, nobody, including
themselves, knew," said Bennett Cerf.
Prior to that, though, Reichenbach promoted a sequel
everyone predicted would be a flop after seeing the
preview.
A few days later a bearded professor registered as
T.R. Zann at the Belleclaire Hotel in New York and
requested that his piano be brought to his room. The
huge "piano," boxed, was hoisted to his room by block
and tackle. Shortly afterwards, Mr. Zann called room
service and ordered 15 pounds of raw meat. The
puzzled waiter who brought the meat to the room took
one look inside and fled, screaming:
"There's a live lion up there!"
In reality, the piano box had contained a toothless
old lion.
Mr. T.R. Zann led the animal through the main lobby of
the hotel a few minutes later, causing:
1. Three old ladies to faint dead away,
2. The management to call the police emergency squad,
and,
3. Mr. T.R. Zann and his lion to get enormous amounts
of front-page publicity in every paper in town.
By the time newspaper editors discovered it was all a
publicity stunt for a movie, there was little they
could do about it. The movie-"The Return of
Tarzan"-soon opened. Crowds fought to get in and, as
you're probably aware, there have been countless
sequels since played by a wide variety of actors.
INDULGENCE: The second stage.
At the indulgence stage, your target audience knows
your firm or specific product or magazine is alive,
but really has little care whether it continues to
exist or not. This is the stage where many new
products fail...when new businesses stumble and fall.
They are ballyhooed and advertised and introduced on
the market with little or no follow-up promotion(s).
The audience is aware of the product, but has little
reason or need to sample it. If it is unique-and
needed-it might survive; if it is just one of the
crowd, the chances of survival are extremely thin.
Realize, of course, that even great and continuous
promotions can not make a bad product, service, or
firm successful. At least, not for long. Hadacol was
a product introduced in the 1940s (as I recall) with
phenomenal ballyhoo.
Many years ago at a party in New York City, I ran into
a man whose job was to help promote the product.
Hadacol (had a cold), for those of you who might not
remember, was largely herbs and alcohol. It might not
have actually cured the common cold, but after a few
spoonfuls, I'm sure that most people didn't really
care. In fact, the guy I talked to fondly remembered
the parties (they literally carried their own booze!)
on one of the trains that crossed America carrying
music to every niche and cranny of the nation.
Mickey
Rooney, left, with founder of Hadacol, the product and the
promotion Dudley J. LeBlanc. Circa 50s. Picture taken in
Lafayette, LA, at the railroad station.
One of the trains
carried several country music
artists. I seem to remember that the late Hank
Williams was one of these. And another train was
devoted to what was then called middle-of-the-road
music artists and the late Vaughn Monroe may have been
one on board. The concept of the two tours (there may
have been more) was to draw a crowd with music, same
as the old medicine men shows of ancient times, pass
out samples, and peddle the product.
I've long regretted that I didn't pump the man at the
party for more information, but in those days I was
working on a man's adventure magazine and hanging out
with Mickey Spillane, Jimmy Breslin, Bill Mason, and
many other much more interesting people and was
focusing then on being a magazine man; it wasn't until
I started working as radio-TV editor for Billboard
magazine in March 1964 that I started actually doing
public relations and becoming, thusly, more of a
student of the field (I had earlier taken public
relations at the University of Texas under Alan Scott,
author of one of the leading college textbooks about
public relations).
There is a vast difference between merely reporting
the news as a public relations person and creating it.
In the first capacity, the public relations person is
a conduit between source and media and, thus, very
valuable in the role played. Media today simply
cannot afford to be everywhere and cover all events;
large events-or more important events because of the
importance of the people involved-generally take
precedent in editorial coverage and, more especially,
in media attention by reporters.
These days, public relations people tend to ignore the
created event and rely strictly upon the real events
that happen during the course of a business. I'm not
saying this is entirely bad. In fact, it may be a
very wise maneuver regarding many situations.
One of the leading public relations persons of the
40s, Joseph Hicks, felt:
"It is often possible to make news about the client
when there is none available in the natural course of
events. Made news has many ramifications. At one
extreme, movie publicity men have sometimes been
accused of having actress' jewels "stolen" for
publicity purposes. More sedately, a prominent
manufacturer may make a speech before some civic
group, primarily to have his name and a summary of
what he said appear in print."
A good public relations person would then attempt to
maximize the publicity by remarketing any attention
gained. Carl Terzian, a public relations scientist in
Los Angeles, does this extremely well. Once an
article gets printed, he makes sure that the right
people have opportunity to read it by reprinting it
and mailing a copy to them. Thus, an article by
himself or a client that appears in an obsure
publication increases in value immensely because of
the "correct" circulation. Terzian sometimes
increases the effectiveness of the article by
including a personal, usually handwritten note. His
theory is that busy business executives see so many
typed messages that a handwritten message gains more
attention.
Some public relations people might argue that, today,
the promotion stunt has diminished value because it
has been over done. This is certainly true about many
stunts. The the 40s and 50s, flagpole sitting seemed
to be a major staple of every rock radio station in
America. And there were countless disc jockeys who
climbed into the seats of Ferris Wheels and spun
around and around for days upon days. Anything and
everything to gain attention. Dick Star, then working
for a Top 40 radio station in Florida, once had
himself welded into a car; the idea was to set a
record for living in a car.
"Publicity is perhaps the most versatile tool of
public relations, Hicks said. "It is a natural ally
of advertising, direct mail campaigns, radio programs,
speakers' bureaus, etc., and it is a quick and
effective method of getting a message before the
public. It may take the form of a news story, a
magazine article, a radio news commentary, a newsreel,
a message flashed by a moving electric sign, or many
another guise." (347-349) Today, we would add a vast
variety of other media channels, including TV,
cassettes, computer bulletin boards and computerized
gossip columns.
And the concept has changed. Hicks revealed he was a
product of his time when he said,
"In the practical sense, it is primarily getting
somebody's or something's name mentioned in the news
columns of newspapers and magazines, on the radio or
in the newsreels. Sometimes, it promotes a basic idea
without mentioning any name or trademark. If we are
going to consider publicity as a tool of public
relations, however, we must add the word favorably to
this conception."
We realize today that an unfavorable impression may be
precisely what is needed. The success of Howard Stern
is an indication of what can be accomplished strictly
negative.
Today, the scientist of public relations doesn't do
merely a stunt and if he or she does, it is usually a
planned event with objectives that have been clearly
defined and are expected to happen precisely as
predicted and are measurable by some methodology.
The stunt/event should certainly not be executed
strictly to get media attention. More aptly, one
strives for an image.
Newspaper and magazines columns, of course, usually
lack the power that they used to have; at best,
attention gained in columns can only be considered
supplementary. Newspapers themselves lack the
importance as a single medium that they once enjoyed.
Newsreels have disappeared entirely. Anyway, just
casual media attention, today, achieves little
purpose. And, to tell the truth, even two or three
minutes of prime-time news coverage on television
doesn't mean all that much except perhaps to the ego
of the public relations person or the person, company,
or product getting the attention.
So, the good public relations person, after first
gaining attention, must strive to move the target
audience beyond apathy...beyond mere indulgence.
And one of the techniques could be continuous,
well-planned and well-executed, thematic promotion
events or stunts.
These promotional events should all, of course, fit
within an overall theme and purpose for the client,
whether the specific client is a person, product,
series, or organization.
Bibliography
Cerf, Bennett. "Try and Stop Me." New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1944.
Hicks, Joseph W. "Publicity-A Tool of Public
Relations." From: "Your Public Relations," Denny
Griswold, ed. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1948.
Fuhrman, Candice Jacobson. "Publicity Stunt! Great
Staged Events That Made the News." San Francisco:
Chronicle Books, 1989.
ENDNOTE: One course at UNLV which I took more than a
dozen years ago at the graduate level was strictly so
that I could write a series of articles about
promotion, etc., including the article above. The
professor didn't appreciate any of these articles, but
I've always had the impression that she didn't have
the slightest idea what I was writing about. UNLV,
then and now, is not noted for its School of
Communication. You mention radio to some people and
they say, "What?" Guess that's going to be a growing
trend.
OTHER MATTERS
Joe Vincent: "Great story re Jack Thayer. Brought
back a lot of memories. I knew Jack well. Ahead of his
time all the time. Others that I knew...Duncan,
Blore, Glascock, Weaver, Janssen, others. Thanks for
the memories."t
Bob King died a few days ago in a Santa Monica (Los
Angeles) hospital. Pneumonia and kidney failure.
Joey Reynolds: "Bob was the VP at Cap Cities who fired
me and I nailed my shoes to the manager's door."
The shoes story is a classic in radio and I think was
mentioned in "This Business of Radio Programming."
Certainly, I've told it numerous times in person.
Joey: "I made amends with him this year."
Thus goes a legend! We come, we do, we go.
e-mail claude@claudehallonline.com
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