FORTUNE COOKIE

by Bryce Courtenay

  Dansford and I turned up to be told that Texas Oil had experienced a drastic 18 per cent downturn in sales, due to Caltex entering the market with an additive named Boron that they advertised at the pumps with a picture of a rocket taking off. Consequently, the Chinese thought of it as some kind of rocket fuel, and all the other petrol brands were taking a hiding.

  Texas Oil had been placing their American advertising with a local Chinese agency that simply translated the American slogan into Chinese. When I had it retranslated I discovered it was a pretty bland statement – Makes car go better. The Caltex rocket on the petrol pump was much more effective. Everyone could understand it and the slogan translated as Rocket power for your engine.

  The problem was that we had no chance of coming up with an in-depth creative approach in two days. I’d told Dansford, ‘I don’t want to screw this up. If it’s possible, we should attempt to get the account without doing a creative pitch, then take our time to do a proper job.’

  Dansford nodded but then said, ‘Don’t like our chances. He’ll want to see something, Simon.’

  Big Loud Mike completed his brief and looked directly at Dansford. ‘We’re losing more than the local currency; we’re bleeding fucking US dollars. Show me something I can use – Thursday at the latest.’

  ‘Tex, I regret we can’t help you,’ Dansford replied, to my surprise.

  ‘Hey, what sort of a cockamamie answer is that?’ Big Loud Mike replied. ‘I got a decent budget. We ain’t no penny-ante Chinese account!’

  ‘Getting back your market share won’t be easy – we have to do it right,’ Dansford said, then turned to me. ‘How much time, Simon?’

  ‘Two weeks.’

  ‘Jesus! That’s the best y’all can do, before —’

  ‘Before what?’ Dansford asked.

  ‘Before we get something at the gas stations that’ll blow those Caltex cocksuckers away, man!’

  ‘I can present a proposed campaign to you in two weeks. If you approve it, then realistically we’ll need a month to six weeks to produce it and get it on the road, sir,’ I replied, now convinced we’d really blown it but knowing it was an honest answer, even if Sidney Wing would have strongly disapproved. His view was ‘Promise them anything to get the account, then try to sort out the mess later’ – the theory being that the client, having hired you, will be reluctant to fire you and eventually you’ll reach some kind of solution. It occasionally worked but it bred distrust and resentment and more often than not was a recipe for disaster.

  Big Loud Mike wanted something fast, and when you’re chasing lost market share, fast is never a good idea. This was, I knew, my big chance. Michael Johns ran all of Asia and if I could pull this off, it would be a feather in my cap. It would also show New York we were able to generate worthwhile local business. If I fucked up a campaign that would run in several countries simultaneously, my career in Asia would be over. But I took a chance that he was desperate and would give me the minimum time I needed – that way my destiny was in my own hands.

  Two weeks was barely sufficient to come up with the initial idea. Even if he approved it lock, stock and barrel, it would be bloody near impossible to produce final copy, radio ads, layouts and point-of-sale at the service stations, as well as twenty-four-sheet posters, in a mere six weeks. For the point-of-sale and press ads there was only a Chinese calligrapher and myself, with Ronnie helping out on the production. I’d be going day and night and then some.

  ‘Mr Koo, they got my balls on the fucking chopping block. They ain’t happy in Houston and y’all better know what you’re talking about or before I’m back pumping gas in Dallas, ever-body in America gonna know y’all fucked up big-time! Before I say yes, you gotta oblige me with sumpthin’ to give me some con-fee-dence!’

  Dansford calmly assured him that we would be happy to oblige him but what was it that he suggested we do?

  ‘Well, maybe I just come in, meet some-a the key people and have a mosey around, see what ideas you got. What say eight o’clock day after tomorrow?’

  Dansford sat quietly for a moment then looked Michael Johns in the eye. ‘No, I can’t do that.’

  Big Loud Mike was obviously not accustomed to being denied. ‘Why the hell not, Mr Drocker? What the fuck’s up wid you guys?’

  Dansford hesitated, then said with a big smile, ‘Because I don’t stop puking until nine.’

  The agency visit was organised for 10.30 a.m. two days later.

  Once we were in the taxi going back to the agency I asked, ‘Dansford, what are we going to do, mate? No way I can have anything half-decent ready in two days. When he comes in he’s going to expect something, anything – a poster, point-of-sale, something with a slogan that points to an ongoing advertising theme …’

  ‘He’s a Texan and believes in the American way. That’s what we’ll give him,’ Dansford replied calmly.

  ‘Jesus, Dansford, they’ve lost 18 per cent of their market and they’re in Shit Street. They’ve used the American campaign and it isn’t working. What’s more, this proposed visit and talk to the staff is pretty bloody funny. Talk to whom? Sidney Wing, grinning like a hungry goanna, exaggerating his American drawl and suggesting a round of golf at his club sometime soon, and Johnny “Dracula” Wing, both greeting Big Loud Mike with a handshake that has all the strength of an over-ripe banana. Ronnie’s okay, but as for the rest of the staff, they’re almost all Chinese and could qualify as paid mourners at a misanthrope’s funeral. The whole place smells of shit and when I complained to Sidney yesterday, he called it “a slight sewage overflow that doesn’t require attention”!’

  ‘We’ll think of something, Simon. We’ll have him in to the agency for a chat and then, as one American to another … I’ll take him out to lunch.’

  My heart sank. ‘Dansford, do you think that’s such a good idea?’

  ‘Bourbon. He’s a bourbon man. Can’t mistake a bourbon man. It’s written on his face. Take my word for it, this is going to be “spam from Uncle Sam”.’

  I looked doubtfully at him. ‘And, er, taking him out to lunch is … going to give him confidence in us?’

  ‘Sure, “straight Kentucky bourbon”, I can tell instinctively.’

  It wasn’t yet noon and Dansford was unquestionably sober. Besides, he was the agency’s chief executive and had the final say, so I was forced to accept his decision. ‘We’ll need Ronnie when we get back to the agency. Will you send him round to my office?’ he concluded.

  I’d known Dansford Drocker for only two weeks but his after-lunch disappearances were clearly a habit. I was suddenly really worried. It was obviously a crazy decision to take Big Loud Mike out after the agency visit to a lunch that might well go on until midnight and beyond, that is, if the big Texan didn’t abandon Dansford on the way to oblivion – Dansford that night and us the next day. There evidently wasn’t going to be a pitch for the Texas Oil account and I’d be implicated as part of the team that had taken the brief and blown it. If Sidney wanted to shoot me down in the eyes of New York, he was going to have all the ammo he needed. Simon, baby, you’re history!

  In the three and a half months I’d been in the job, I’d been getting a hard time from the two senior Wings. It was nothing you could confront them with, but almost everything I suggested for their long-held pre-merger accounts was rejected. There were several things I could have done to greatly improve the ads they were running, but all my efforts were to no avail. I could never get to talk directly to the Chinese clients they controlled, and they would invariably return from seeing a client to say my new layout and copy had been rejected. I doubt very much that my work was even taken out of its folio.

  Now, with Dansford’s crazy lunch idea, it was all over. I might as well throw in the towel and slink back to Australia. Try to forget the most desirable and beautiful woman I’d ever met, because she too was out of bounds, untouchable.

  I was feeling pathetically sorry for myself. In fact, since arriving I hadn’t made the slightest
dent in the agency’s creative product; my total impact was a big fat zero. If the blokes in Sydney could see you now – some Fortune Cookie! In my thoroughly morose state, I thought that Mercy B. Lord probably wouldn’t agree to return to Australia with me if I asked her, and the White Australia Policy probably wouldn’t permit her to enter as my intended bride anyway. Fucking drunken Yank!

  Ronnie returned from Dansford’s office with a smile the size of a slice of watermelon. ‘Action stations, Simon! At last, at last! Hallelujah! At last! An idea bigger than fucking Texas!’

  ‘What, Dansford on the town with Big Loud Mike? Jesus, you can’t be serious, Ronnie?’

  He looked at me astonished. ‘What, you don’t agree? It’s fucking brilliant, man!’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘The twenty girls!’

  ‘What twenty girls?’

  ‘Sorry, Simon, can’t hang about. I’m off to get the T-shirts printed and the hotpants made … Shit, where am I going to get twenty pairs of red high heels?’ With that he was gone. I had never seen Ronnie more excited.

  The afternoon prior to the Texas Oil visit, our receptionist, Alice Ho, and any plain girls (which was almost all of them), plus anyone over the age of about twenty-five, were told they’d been given the following morning off and were not to come in until after lunch. In their places the following morning were twenty ravishing and well-stacked girls all wearing skin-tight red hotpants, white T-shirts and red patent-leather shoes with five-inch heels. Their over-stretched T-shirts carried the red Texas Oil logo on the back and on the front the message: ‘Texas Declares War on Boron’.

  There were two girls waiting in the hotel car park to welcome Big Loud Mike and escort him across the road to the agency. A particularly gorgeous girl sat in reception and gave him a knee-trembling smile of welcome. In fact, wherever he turned or went in the agency over the next three hours, a glorious-looking young woman smiled beguilingly at him, some playfully thrusting their bosoms out to emphasise the slogan.

  It all seemed to go rather well. We had even distributed Air Wick in an attempt to mask the smell of the latrines. Nevertheless, I watched with a sinking feeling as Dansford and Big Loud Mike, seemingly happy and laughing, departed for lunch.

  As for the lunch that followed, Ronnie found them with their arms around each other, singing ‘The Yellow Rose of Texas’ in Bill Bailey’s Bar at one o’clock the following morning. He paid the exorbitant drinks bill and organised a couple of taxis to take them home.

  The next day we were told we’d been awarded the Texas Oil account. Moreover, Big Loud Mike and Dansford Drocker became great mates and regular drinking buddies, eventually forming the 6B Club, a charitable organisation for expats who were fond of a drink, to raise money to rescue street kids. The six Bs stood for the Brotherhood of Bourbon Boozers at Bill Bailey’s Bar, the watering hole where they usually finished a night’s carousing. As Dansford had predicted, the American way had triumphed. All that was required now was an Asian way to sell petrol.

  I came up with a concept that required them to rename their petrol – or gasoline, as Michael Johns called it. It was to be known as Texas Tiger. The slogan was simple enough: ‘Texas Tiger puts the roar into your engine’. The petrol pumps were to be painted in tiger stripes with a tiger’s face in full roar at the centre of each. The pump hose was made to resemble the stripes on a tiger’s tail. As the nozzle was lifted from the bracket at the side of the petrol pump, it would trigger a deep growl and, of course, all the radio commercials and later the television ads ended with the slogan and a tiger’s roar.

  Ronnie Wing hated the concept. ‘It’s bullshit, Simon. The Chinese won’t buy it. The tiger is a sacred symbol, and you’re insulting them.’

  After having worked with him for months I understood that he was an unusual individual. He had an uncommon characteristic, which was that his opinion on matters of effective advertising was always wrong – not occasionally wrong but invariably wrong. He was the perfect barometer. If he liked an advertising idea – in his words, ran it up the flagpole and saluted it, and was convinced it would work – this meant it would fail and should immediately be scrapped.

  ‘Sorry, mate, Dansford likes it. We’re going ahead with it,’ I replied.

  ‘Well, just remember who told you,’ he replied, greatly miffed.

  The new Texas Tiger petrol was launched with a street procession down Orchard Road during the lunch hour with twenty convertibles painted in tiger stripes, each carrying one of the girls who had greeted Big Loud Mike on his visit to the agency. Now, though, they wore skin-tight tiger outfits, complete with ears and whiskers and tiger tails, and stood on the bonnets of the cars, their feet gripped by two leather sleeves fixed to the bonnet so they wouldn’t fall or lose their balance. These sleeves were painted to resemble tiger paws. The parade drew a massive crowd, estimated at fifty thousand. As Dansford later remarked, the launch got away to a roaring start.

  In Asia the tiger is, of course, the king of beasts and represents, among other things, fearlessness and wrath. In myth it is equal to the dragon in importance. Ronnie was adamant that it wouldn’t work and claimed the Chinese would object to it being used as a brand symbol for petrol, but I had to take the chance.

  I’m happy to say that over the next six months Texas Tiger, the petrol that put the roar into your engine, regained and increased market share in every Asian market. Even today the Chinese fondly refer to it as tiger piss and it remains a leading brand. I guess you could say that in advertising terms I was a made man, but from that point on, a very busy one as well.

  Dansford worked hard every morning on the plans for an ad campaign for one or another of our major American accounts. This invariably involved us working together, but when he went AWOL at lunchtime I was left to do the creative work and a fair bit besides. I would never have been able to cope with five major accounts had it not been for Pepsi-Cola, for which we used the spam-from-Uncle-Sam approach and reran the same ad campaign translated into the local language. I was doing the work of two, perhaps even three creative groups in Australia.

  After Dansford had been in Singapore for about six months, Colgate-Palmolive asked us to do a market survey for a new liquid laundry detergent, a product that could be used without a washing machine. I had been particularly keen on a laundry detergent for hand-washing, which was as cheap as, but better than, the blue soap bars local women commonly used to do their washing, and which were infused with lye or caustic soda. I hadn’t forgotten a remark from Mercy B. Lord after my foolish question about the brand of washing powder most commonly used in machines in Singapore. ‘You can tell by their hands. They use cheap lye-based soap and it burns their skin.’ Mercy B. Lord had been amused by my question, but not at the physical price these poor washerwomen paid for their masters’ and mistresses’ clean laundry. Amahs did all the washing by hand, using a washboard or rock and the strong caustic soap.

  This hand-washing detergent had been another one of my recommendations, but before accepting it and doing the necessary development, they required us to investigate the customer base and find out the likely reaction to proposed names, the product description and pricing, as well as the conditions in which the product would be used and all the usual information needed to launch a new product.

  In any European or Western market this would have been a routine task for a market-research company but in the Asian market it was damn near impossible. For a start there was no such thing as a market-research company; secondly, the Chinese and the Malays, in fact most Asians, seldom answer a question honestly for fear of causing a loss of face. Instead they tend most often to give you the answer they believe you require or would most prefer. But there was another problem – personal opinions are regarded as dangerous because they can indicate intent, and it is always bad joss to tempt the gods with having plans before you have consulted them. A stranger asking questions and wanting your opinion could destroy your luck.

  The request for the survey cam
e directly from America and Dansford pointed out that this explanation wasn’t what they wanted to hear back in the States.

  ‘Dansford, what the hell are we going to do?’ I asked.

  ‘Simon, this is your baby, but let me assure you they’re not going to take one step further in the labs in Milwaukee or the marketing department in New York until they get their market survey.’

  ‘But I’m certain such a product will work. Even the name, “Big Lather”, translates well into Chinese and Malay. We could test-market it here and then take it to the rest of Asia.’

  ‘Simon, do I not recall you telling me that you’re no friend of market research, that you thought it was mostly bullshit?’

  ‘Yeah, true, if it’s the kind we did for a new brand of cigarette in Australia. But a test market is different. Can’t we persuade them to go straight to a test market?’ I had some respect for that kind of research. A test market is where you test a new product on the potential user to see how it fares under working conditions, so you can iron out any product or marketing bugs it might have. Singapore, with almost two million people and four separate cultures, Chinese being the major one, was an ideal test market for greater South-East Asia.

  ‘Absolutely not! They don’t make a move without market research. Colgate-Palmolive doesn’t believe in hunches, inspired guesswork, local expertise or opinions.’ Dansford Drocker shrugged. ‘You don’t believe in market research, they do, so, hey, what the hell, make it up.’

  ‘What, do a phoney research project? How the hell do we do that?’

  ‘Easy. We have to write the submission and questionnaire, so why don’t we print two thousand or so and fill them in ourselves? You get the answer you want and they’re happy.’

  ‘Jesus! You sure? What if they find out?’

  ‘How?’