Selling the Dream

by Hugh Mackay

  About Selling the Dream

  Lincoln The Hunter is living the dream. Universally admired and terrifically charming, he has a formidable reputation in the world of advertising, and is the jewel in the crown of agency KK&C.

  When Linc is handed the reins of the high-budget, high-profile campaign for the groundbreaking new snack ‘The Ripper’, he knows it’s his chance to leverage his way to greater success and greener, more glamourous pastures. No matter that it will leave KK&C floundering in his wake . . .

  Ruthless in his pursuit of professional success, it doesn’t occur to Linc that he himself might be the pawn in this great game of advertising, where no method – be it a calculated office affair or ‘disruptive skydiving’ – is off limits to aid in selling the dream.

  In this laugh-out-loud funny and frighteningly believable satire, Hugh Mackay lays bare the machinations of this multi-million-dollar industry, and leaves you wondering just where the line between parody and reality falls.

  ‘The stiff-arm tackles in this book are a thing of beauty.’ John Clarke

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  About Selling the Dream

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About Hugh Mackay

  Also by Hugh Mackay

  Copyright page

  For scientific purposes, I suggest the following experiment. Let two soaps, A and B, be manufactured, of which A is excellent and B abominable; let A be advertised by stating its chemical composition and by testimonials from eminent chemists; let B be advertised by the bare statement that it is the best, accompanied by the portraits of famous Hollywood beauties. If man is a rational animal, more will be sold of A than of B. Does anyone, in fact, believe that this would be the result?

  Bertrand Russell,

  The Scientific Outlook (1931)

  1

  ‘WHERE’S LINC?’ SOMEONE asked. All heads turned to the open door.

  Right on cue, Lincoln The Hunter strode into the room, briskly, exuberantly, radiating his signature glow of confidence. He smiled at Jerry Weisbrot, head of marketing at GBH, and the two men slapped palms in a high five, like fellow members of an elite team.

  ‘Living the dream, bro,’ said Linc.

  ‘Living the dream,’ said Jerry, in the manner of a liturgical response.

  Linc was in his mid-forties, Jerry ten years older. Though Linc’s hair was blond and thick and Jerry’s thin and grey, they looked remarkably similar in most other respects. They were both short, compact, tanned and fit. They were wearing practically identical charcoal-grey suits, teamed with white shirts and blue ties; theirs were the only polished shoes in the room. They were both inclined to rise onto the balls of their feet and use expansive hand gestures when talking.

  Linc took the seat that had been kept for him – the one that was always kept for him – at the end of one side of the table, farthest from the head.

  At the head of the table sat Bob Kelman, the rotund CEO of the ad agency that bore his name, among others. Bob also wore a suit teamed with a business shirt, but no tie; so did a young woman from GBH, though her suit was far smarter than Bob’s. The other people ranged around the table were attired in variations on the theme of corporate grunge – a studied scruffiness that drew influences from op-shop punk, with a hint of Goth, leavened by distressed denim. None appeared to own an iron. One of the males wore a rumpled double-breasted jacket over his T-shirt. They might have looked as if they had just dragged their unwilling bodies out of bed, or been bussed in from the night shift on a construction site, but this was in fact one of the most highly rated teams of advertising strategists in Sydney. Top guns.

  ‘Lock the doors!’ said Bob Kelman, rubbing his hands in anticipation.

  The conference room ceiling was black, the double doors now being locked were fuchsia, the exposed brick walls were stained and chipped with age. A black glass table sat on chrome legs. Eight leather chairs, all now occupied, matched the doors. In case anyone forgot why they were here, one wall of the conference room was lined with framed advertisements for GBH products.

  Bob beamed at his agency’s biggest-spending client. ‘Thanks for coming in, Jerry. It’s your meeting.’

  GBH – Global Brand Holdings – was a world leader in the manufacture and marketing of snack foods and a range of sugar-and-caffeine drinks Jerry called ‘recreational beverages’, possibly to distinguish them from non-recreational beverages such as bowel preparations or hemlock.

  The agency’s strategy team loved these freewheeling meetings chaired by Jerry. He called them his T4s (for Top Team Think Tanks). They almost always involved new product announcements. Only two words were permanently banned from the conversation: ‘sugar’ and ‘fat’. But you could talk about nutrients. You could talk about sources of energy. You could talk about flavour enhancement. You could talk about texture. You could certainly talk about pack-to-product-appeal ratios – PPARs. No one appreciated the critical importance of the pack more than Jerry: what went in it was of less interest to him, though he would listen patiently to his food technologists when they tried to explain the potential market impact of this or that new delight. (Oh, there was a third word banned from T4s: ‘addictive’. It was taken for granted that this was a goal the tech team would have firmly fixed in the forefront of their minds.)

  Once he was certain the doors were indeed locked, Jerry said: ‘Put it on the table, Delia. I promised you something special, Linc, didn’t I? Take a look at this.’

  The besuited young marketing executive opened her bag and, with a flourish, withdrew a small package and placed it in the centre of the table.

  There was a prolonged silence as the agency team took it in, their faces shining with dutiful admiration. No one had the faintest idea what it could be.

  The small cardboard box bore the words The Ripper in fluoro orange against a plain black background, with the GBH logo and some fine print on the reverse side of the pack. To Bob Kelman, it looked more menacing than appetising. He refrained from saying so.

  Lincoln The Hunter leant forward and picked it up, whistling through his teeth. He turned the pack over and glanced at the fine print. He knew better than to dwell on the nutritional details, and his eyes passed lightly over references to food acids, additives and preservatives. For one mad moment he thought he had read ‘may contain traces of poison’; he quickly turned the pack over and gazed like a lover at its lurid face.

  ‘The Ripper,’ he said quietly. ‘Awesome. No other word for it, Jerry. I can see a whole new world of display and promotional possibilities opening up. This is a game-changer, no question. When can we start work?’

  Gently, reverentially, he replaced the pack on the table. One of the women from the agency picked it up, sniffed it, shook it – it rattled softly – and, still mystified, passed it to the person next to her. In respectful silence, the pack passed from hand to hand until it reached Jerry, bursting with pride, at the head of the table.

  ‘The tech team will brief you later, Linc,’ he said, looking straight at Linc; only at Linc; only ever at Linc. ‘We won’t waste your time with that today, but I’ll just get Delia to outline the KPBs and then it will be over to you. We want to show them how we can make their dreams come true. Gospel according to Linc, isn’t it? Go big or go home? Love it. The Ri
pper’s the most fantasy-driven product we’ve ever come up with, so go as big as you like. And – get this – we’re the test market for the entire world. The planet, Linc. GBH’s global spotlight will be right on us. This is the best chance you guys will ever have to shine. If we crack the campaign here, Australia will be the platform for the international rollout – starting with India, then Brazil, then maybe the US. Big numbers, boys and girls. So we must keep that international perspective in mind right from the start, okay? Everything must be translatable, universalisable, okay?’

  Linc bent thoughtfully over his iPad, fingers tapping, then rose from his seat and walked once around the table, using his iPad to take shots of the pack from every conceivable angle.

  ‘And now,’ he said, like the barrister his father wished he had become, ‘we must interrogate the brand until it gives up its truth. Your witness, Delia.’

  Delia fired up the PowerPoint and the words Key Product Benefits appeared high on the screen. Everyone raised their eyes worshipfully, as if to a sacred mountaintop. Delia clicked her wand and Indescribable taste slid onto the screen.

  ‘That’s literally true,’ Delia said with great seriousness. ‘We’ve run some preliminary taste tests and people say they can’t describe the taste. It’s not like anything they’ve ever tasted before. It’s unique!’

  ‘Taste tests?’ said Lincoln The Hunter. ‘Jerry, our clear understanding is that any consumer research is to be done right here in the agency’s AdLab.’

  ‘Absolutely right, Linc,’ Jerry replied. His tone was conciliatory. ‘This wasn’t research in the true sense, was it, Delia? It was just a few members of the tech team kicking it around. No consumers, as such. Nothing scientific.’

  Jerry made a mental note to warn Delia to guard her tongue in future, especially in front of Linc. He had the highest respect for Linc’s work, but everyone knew The Hunter was capable of throwing the most extravagant tantrums if he thought people were not playing by his rules. (He had once overturned a conference table in a rage, it was said. He had also thrown a laptop at a defenceless potted yucca in the corner of his office, though it was never made clear whether it was the computer or the plant that had aroused his ire.) In Jerry Weisbrot’s experience, Linc was almost always right, so it was important to humour him. In fact, Jerry thought Linc was the only actual genius he had ever met in his entire career; he explained to his staff that you didn’t have to like Linc to recognise what a brilliant operator he was – philosopher, corporate diplomat, campaign strategist and marketing tactician, all rolled into one. Jerry himself, it was generally recognised, was possessed of imagination and insight in only the most limited quantities. But he was an effective delegator.

  Onto the screen flashed a second message: Aftershock.

  ‘The thing is,’ Delia said, choosing her words with care and glancing uneasily in Linc’s direction, ‘The Ripper does create the sensation of ripping the lining off your throat. It doesn’t actually do so, of course. Unless you overdid it, I suppose. But the sensation is quite intense, to put it mildly, and it induces a temporary huskiness that some people apparently find quite sexy. The total impact is more dramatic than anything GBH has ever achieved before. It sort of fizzes and gives you this really full-on aftertaste.’

  ‘Is this something your tech team came up with? Locally, I mean?’ asked Bob Kelman, struggling to insert himself into the conversation.

  ‘No, Bob. Not really.’ Jerry was painfully aware that the Australian lab, for all its efforts, had never developed a single product concept that had evoked even faint interest at GBH’s head office in Dayton, Ohio. ‘It was apparently an accident, actually. It came out of an Indian lab, when they were testing the limits to human tolerance of a dry-curry snack product. The tech team at Dayton seized on it. We understand the product will be sourced from India, at least initially. Our own tech boys and girls are just trying to get a handle on it. We’re obviously breaking new ground. The Ripper might well point the way to a whole new generation of what we’re calling disruptive snack products. The boffins at Dayton have given the category a code name – Project Cry Havoc. But we’re not spelling that out, naturally, for security reasons. So the code for the code, if you will, is PROCH. The Ripper will be the very first PROCH product to go to market. The pack was designed in Denmark and printed in Poland. The actual packing will be done locally, so there might be some sort of angle there – we might qualify for some version of the Made in Australia tag. “Proudly Australian”? I’ll get the legal people to check that. And we’ll take your advice, of course, Linc. Totally exotic might be an even more powerful way to go, I realise. Not sure about Indian, though.’

  Linc’s response was immediate: ‘Jerry, I think we can bypass all that legalistic argy-bargy. This might be the perfect moment to introduce my Proudly sold in Australia sticker. I’ve discussed this concept with a few other clients, including Cocky – all their stuff is imported, as you know – but The Ripper might have the great distinction of being the very first product to run with it.’

  ‘But isn’t everything sold in Australia? I can’t see how that’s –’

  ‘Not at all, Jerry. Not everything bought in Australia is sold in Australia. The internet has seen to that. People buy a lot of stuff online from offshore suppliers. That’s what all the GST fuss has been about.’

  ‘But not snack foods. Not recreational drinks.’

  ‘So what? If you’re selling in Australia, now is the time to stand up and declare it: Proudly sold in Australia!’ As he articulated the words, Linc used a bold gesture to trace their path across an imaginary pack.

  ‘You don’t think it will just emphasise the fact that the product is not made here?’

  ‘Jerry, come on! Who knows what “Made in Australia” even means anymore? Consumers are confused, and understandably so. Made in Australia. Proudly Australian. Australia’s Own . . . what do they really mean? It’s all bullshit. Are we talking about items totally manufactured here from ingredients totally sourced here, put together by an all-Australian workforce employed by an Australia-owned company? Obviously not. So what does it mean? Owned here? Made here? Australian workers? Australian ingredients? It’s a dog’s breakfast, Jerry.’

  ‘I see what you’re saying. If we only claim it’s sold here, at least there are no legal issues to resolve.’

  ‘That’s a bit negative, Jerry, if I may say so. A bit restrained. I’m suggesting we proudly declare we’re sold in Australia. Confident. On the front foot. Cut through the bullshit, Jerry. Disambiguate!’

  ‘Even if it’s sold in other places as well?’

  ‘Irrelevant. If it’s sold here, it’s sold here. We’re not saying it isn’t sold anywhere else. It’s all in the tone of voice, Jerry. It’s all in the confidence of the thing. Look, when I was a kid, I once went door-to-door collecting money for the Civilian Limbed and Maimless. I mocked up a label and stuck it on a tin. I’m not proud of having done it, but I was only a kid. I collected quite a bit of pocket money, especially from old folks, but I also learnt an important lesson. Like I say, it’s all in the tone of voice, Jerry. You have to exude an air of confidence. Proudly sold in Australia. Perfect. What’s misleading about that? No need to consult a single lawyer.’

  There was a pause while half the room absorbed this latest revelation from the Wisdom of The Hunter and the other half imagined the little shit chiselling small change out of the vulnerable and elderly.

  High on the screen flashed Delia’s third and final KPB: May contain traces of poison.

  ‘This is the killer,’ she said, straight-faced. ‘Lots of products have warnings about traces of nuts, or health warnings of one kind or another. Think alcohol. Tobacco. Especially tobacco. They have a huge inbuilt advantage over snack foods, but this is our chance to join the big league. We think the kids will love it. The ultimate risky snack. Forget obesity – this sounds as if it could actually kill you. It couldn’t, of course. “Traces” means what it says. It’s just a bit of oxali
c acid from a small quantity of rhubarb in the recipe. Quite harmless. Totally. So the tech people tell me.’

  ‘Oxalic acid, did you say? I’ll chat to my wife about that,’ said Linc. ‘She’s a doctor. She’ll have a view about the risks and benefits of a thing like that.’ More tapping at his iPad screen.

  Jerry nodded his acknowledgement. That might have been the fourteenth time Linc had mentioned that his wife was a doctor. Jerry supposed such pride in one’s spouse was a good sign, from the point of view of their marriage, though Jerry himself certainly never bragged about his fourth wife’s job. (She was a strikingly beautiful trade union official who held everything Jerry stood for in contempt. People who knew them both were bewildered by their marriage. An affair, sure; but marriage?)

  Boris, a wunderkind from the creative department with the most exquisitely dishevelled hair in the room, had been scribbling in an old-fashioned notebook with an old-fashioned pencil throughout the meeting. In the silence that followed Linc’s reference to his wife, Boris said ‘Snack the Ripper’, quite quietly, almost to himself, but the words expanded to fill the conversational void. No one knew if Boris was being serious (no one ever knew if Boris was being serious), but Jerry shot a sharp look of disapproval at Linc. By lunchtime, Boris had cleared his desk and been escorted from the building.

  Responsiveness to the client’s wishes had always been a hallmark of the Kelman, Kornfield & Craven style; when Lincoln The Hunter joined the agency, he persuaded the partners that they needed to apply the same client-centred ethos to the matter of staffing.

  Linc was fond of saying that if consumers disliked some particular feature of a product, it would be eliminated or modified. ‘We’re a brand as well as an agency,’ he repeatedly declared, ‘and so the same principle should apply to our units.’ (Linc often referred to KK&C staff members as ‘units’ and regarded almost all of them as dispensable.)

  ‘When any unit offends a client, or doesn’t pull its weight, or doesn’t fit comfortably with our brand positioning, radical surgery will usually solve the problem. Clean excision. Only way.’