"What it comes down to," Andrew said, "is that if you have saturation advertising you can make people believe anything and buy anything.”
"But cold aids do help a cold," she protested.”You hear people say so. " "They only think they help. It's all a delusion. Maybe the cold was getting better. Maybe it was psychological.”
As Andrew put the books away, Celia remembered something another doctor, a veteran general practitioner, had told her when she was a detail woman. "When patients come to me complaining of a cold, I give 'em placebos-harmless little sugar pills. A few days later they'll come back and say, 'nose pills worked wonders: the cold has gone.”
The old G.P. had looked at Celia and chuckled.”It would have gone anyway.” The memory, and Andrew's comments, had the flavor of truth and now, in contrast to her earlier mood, Celia was depressed. Her new responsibilities were opening her eyes to things she wished she didn't have to know. What was happening, she wondered, to her sense of values? She realized what Sam had meant when telling her, "You may have to suspend your critical judgments for a while.” Would it really be necessary? And could she? Should she? Still pondering the questions, she opened the briefcase she had brought home and spread papers around her. Also in the briefcase was something Celia had forgotten until then-a sample package of Bray & Commonwealth's "Healthotherm," an O-T-C product introduced some twenty years earlier and still sold widely as a chest rub for children with colds; it had a strong, spicy smell described in advertising as "comforting.”
Celia had brought it home, knowing Bruce had a cold, and intending to use it. Now she asked Andrew, "Should IT' He took the package from her, read the table of ingredients, and laughed. "Darling, why not? If you want to use that ancient greasy goo, it won't do Brucie the slightest harm. Won't do him any good, either, but it'll make you feel better. You'll be a mother doing some- thing. , Andrew opened the package and inspected the tube inside. Still amused, he said, "Maybe that's what Healthotherm is all about. It isn't for the kids at all; it's for their mothers.”
Celia was about to laugh herself, then stopped and looked at Andrew strangely. Two thoughts had jumped into her mind. The first: yes, she would have to suspend critical judgments for a while; no doubt about it. As to the second thought, Andrew had just tossed out a good-No, much better than that!-a splendid, excellent idea.
"No," Celia told the advertising agency executives across the table.”No, I don't like any of it.”
The effect was instant, like the sudden dousing of a fire. If there had been a temperature indicator in the agency conference room, Celia thought, it would have swung from "warm" to "frigid.”
She sensed the quartet of advertising men making a hasty, improvised assessment of how they should react. It was a Tuesday in mid-January. Celia and four others from Bray & Commonwealth were in New York, having driven in from New Jersey that morning for this meeting at Quadrille-Brown Advertising. Sam Hawthorne, who had been in New York the night before, had joined them. Outside, it was a mean, blustery day. The Quadrille-Brown agency was located in Burlington House on Avenue of the Americas where snarled traffic and scurrying pedestrians were combating a treacherous mixture of snow and freezing rain. The reason for this meeting, in a forty-fourth-floor conference room, was to review,the Bray & Commonwealth advertising program-a normal happening after a major change in management. For the past hour the program had been presented with showmanship and ceremony-so much of both that Celia felt as if she were on a reviewing stand while a regiment paraded by. Not an impressive regiment, though, she had decided. Which prompted her comment, just received with shock. At the long mahogany table at which they were seated, the agency's middle-aged creative man, Al Fiocca, appeared pained; he stroked his Vandyke beard and shifted his feet, perhaps as a substitute for speech, leaving the next move to the youngish account supervisor, Kenneth Orr. It was Orr, smooth of speech and natty in a blue pinstripe suit, who had been the agency group's leader. The third agency man, Dexter Wilson, was the account executive and had handled most of the detailed presentation. Wilson, a few years older than Orr and prematurely gray, had the earnestness of a Baptist preacher and now looked worried, probably because a client's displeasure could cost him his job. Advertising executives, Celia knew, earned large rewards but lived precarious lives. The fourth member of the agency quartet, Bladen--Celia hadn't caught his first name-was an assistant account executive. (Was there anyone in the business, she wondered, who didn't have an important-sounding title?) Bladen, who seemed little more than a youth, had been busy helping move storyboards and artwork around for viewing by the company representatives headed by Celia. Additional agency people--probably another dozen-had come and gone as segments of the presentation succeeded one another. The most recent segment had been for Healthotherm-a new advertising proposal begun before Celia's arrival on the 0-T-C scene. The others with Celia from Bray & Commonwealth were Grant Carvill, who headed marketing; Teddy Upshaw, representing sales; and Bill Ingram, a young product manager. Carvill, a stolid longtime company man in his fifties, was competent but unimaginative; Celia had decided that sometime soon she would move him sideways to another job. Ingram, boyish, with unruly red hair and only a year out of Harvard Business School, was apparently keen and energetic, but otherwise an unknown quantity. Sam Hawthorne, as an officer of Felding-Roth, was senior to them all. The ad agency president, in acknowledgment of Sam's presence, had looked in briefly to say hello. But Sam, in announcing during a telephone call to Celia the day before that he would attend the advertising review, had made his own role clear. "I'll just be sitting in, observing. Because you've a big responsibility to which you're new, and a lot of dollars are involved, the brass over here will feel more comfortable if someone from the parent company keeps an eye on what's happening and reports back. But I won't intervene and it's your show.”
Now Celia glanced at Sam, wondering if he agreed or not with her comment of a moment earlier. But Sam's face was impassive, revealing nothing, as had been the case all morning. "All right, Mr. Orr," Celia said briskly, addressing the account supervisor, "you can stop wondering about how to react, and how to handle me. Let's have plain talk about the advertising, why I don't like it, and why I think this agency, whose work I'm familiar with, can do a whole lot better.”
She sensed a stirring of interest among the advertising group and even, perhaps, relief. All eyes, including those of her own people, were focused on her. Kenneth Orr said smoothly, "We're all delighted to listen, Mrs. Jordan. There is nothing among what you've seen which anyone in the agency is cemented to. As to new ideas, we'll be happy to produce them, or develop yours.”
"I'm glad about the cement," Celia said with a smile, "because my feeling about what we've seen is that everything would have been good ten years ago but is out of tune with here and now. I'm also wondering-to be fair-if some of that is because of instructions and restrictions from our company.”
She was aware of Orr and Dexter Wilson looking at her sharply, with respect. But it was Bladen, the young dogsbody, who blurted out, "Gosh, that's just the way it was! Whenever anybody around here came up with a 'with it' idea, or wanted to jazz up your old products-" The account supervisor cut in sharply, "That will do!" He glared at his subordinate.”We do not blame a client for shortcomings in our advertising. We are professionals who accept responsibility for what goes out from here. Furthermore, you will never refer to 'old products' in that tone. Mrs. Jordan, I apologize.”