Strong Medicine (21 page)

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,

III

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.

2

"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.

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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

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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."

"That's a load of horseshit!" The remark shot out from Celia's side of the

table before she had time to answer Orr. It came from young Bill Ingram,

whose face had flushed red in sudden anger, matching his hair. He went on,

"They are old products and we all know it, so what's wrong with saying so?

No one's suggested discarding them, but they sure can stand jazzing up. So

if we're going to have plain talk, the way Mrs. Jordan said, let's have

it."

There was an awkward silence which Kenneth Orr broke. "Well, well!" With an

eyebrow raised, he seemed divided between surprise

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and amusement. "It seems that youth has spoken up for youth." He turned

to Celia. "Do you mind?"

"No. It may even help us progress."

Behind Celia's attitude today was her opinion, gained from a study of

Bray & Commonwealth files, that past advertising had been inhibited by

overly cautious, status-quo policies, an inhibition she intended to shed.

"To begin, I'd like to discuss Healthotherm," she told the others. "I

believe the ncw advertising that's proposed, as well as our old

advertising, takes the wrong approach."

With a mental salute to Andrew, Celia went on, "All our advertisin g,

going back years because I've checked, shows children smiling, feeling

better, happier, after Healthotherm has been applied to them, rubbed on

their chests."

The account executive, Dexter Wilson, asked mildly, "Isn't that what's

supposed to happen?" But Kenneth Off, watching Celia's face intently,

waved his colleague to silence.

"Yes, it happens," Celia answered. "But it isn't the children, happy or

otherwise, who go into stores and buy Healthotherm. It's their mothers.

Mothers who want to be good mothers, who want to do something to make

their sick children feel better. Yet, in our advertising a mother is

either not in view or is merely in the background. What I would like to

see, right up front, is a happy mother, a relieved mother, a mother who,

when her child was ill, did something to help and now feels good about

it. We should use the same approach for the print media and television."

Suddenly there were approving nods around the table. Celia wondered:

Should she add Andrew's comment, "Maybe that's what Healthotherm is all

about. It isn't for the kids at all; it's for their mothers. " She

decided not. She also put resolutely from her mind Andrew's description,

"that ancient greasy goo" which, he claimed, would do neither harm nor

good.

Kenneth Orr said slowly, "That's interesting. Very interesting."

"It's more than interesting," Bill Ingram injected. "It's damn good. Do

you think so, Howard?" The question was to Bladen, so now Celia had the

missing first name.

The young agency man nodded eagerly. "Sure do. What we'd have is a kid

in the background-I guess you'd have to show one somewhere. But momma

right up front, and not too smoothy a momma. Her hair a bit ruffled,

maybe her dress a touch untidy. As if she'd been working, sweating,

worrying, in the kid's sickroom."

Ingram picked it up. "Yes, make her reaL

"But happy," Bladen said. "She's relieved, not worrying any more because

she knows her kid's okay, thanks to Healthotherm. That's a must. Mrs.

Jordan put her pinkie on it there."

"We can work out the details," Orr observed. He smiled at Celia. "Mrs.

Jordan, there seems a consensus that you have something promising."

"And something else, Mrs. Jordan," Bill Ingram said. "At our end we ought

to change the product a bit. Then we could call it 'New Healthotherm.'"

The account executive, Dexter Wilson, nodded. "That always helps."

"New Healthotherm." Teddy Upshaw mouthed the words as if trying them on,

then affirmed, "Yep! Be good for our sales guys out front. Give 'em a new

angle, something fresh to talk about."

Grant Carvill, the Bray & Commonwealth marketing man, leaned forward.

Celia had the impression he felt the decision process was passing him by,

therefore he should say something.

"Changing the product won't be difficult," Carvill volunteered. "The

chemists do it by revising an ingredient. Just something minor, not

critical, maybe a difference in the per-fume."

"Great!" Bladen said. "Now we're cooking."

In a separate compartment of her mind, Celia wondered if all this was

really taking place, and how she would have felt about it only a short