CHAPTER 10
At the end of the week, Dan suggested to Ron that they try a test. He had been able to get a test commercial for a dish washing product that a manufacturer had made. The commercial had run in a very limited market in the Pacific Northwest to see if it had any potential. Reaction was generally negative with 64% of women and 78% of men expressing an unfavorable opinion of the product without ever having tried it. Each test group was asked to write down his or her specific objections to the commercial.
During one of the shows Slate was watching on a Friday night, Ron replaced the regular commercial with the test one; and Slate’s reactions were recorded. The next day, when the team knew Andrew did his grocery shopping for the week, they made up a batch of small sample bottles of dish detergent to give away for free. Both had the exact same bottle design and the exact same color liquid inside, but the labels were different. One was of a brand that didn’t exist and whose label featured the color pink while the other was the same label as appeared on the test commercial Andrew had seen the day before. As he exited the supermarket, a man approached him and other shoppers in the parking lot and offered them a choice of the two free sample dish detergents, making it appear to be a promotion. Andrew took the pink labeled one without hesitation although pink was a man’s least favorite color.
Dan tried a similar test featuring a different product two days later, and Andrew passed with flying colors. It was now time to contact an advertising agency to do this for real.
Dan made his pitch to George Borley, head man at Borley and Enwright, one of the top agencies in the business. George Borley was about to conduct a big campaign for Santana Cosmetics who were coming out with a new line of men’s grooming products. The polling numbers on their test commercial were highly favorable among men, and Borley was ready to launch. Dan had already obtained a preview copy of the ad and had shown it to Slate through the commercial substitution ruse. Then, Andrew’s facial reactions were measured against the commercial second by second with the computer spitting out the results. According to Slate, the focus was not on the product but more so on the background images. When the grooming aid was in a close up shot, Slate’s eye contact with the screen wandered. In wide shots where water skiers were seen skimming across the surface in the background, Slate was focused. The polling company had registered a false positive. When Dan suggested to Borley that he try another polling sample but ask specific questions about what the viewers were specifically looking at in each frame, Borley balked. Dan then tried a different tactic asking Borley to accompany him to any public gathering place of Borley’s choosing and to bring with him the photo ad they were going to use in their magazine spreads. Borley could ask the question to anyone he wanted: “What do you see in this picture?”
Hesitatingly, Borley agreed figuring he would shut this loud mouth up. Going down to the street in front of the building with Dan at his side and the ad picture in his hand, he stopped people at random and asked what they saw in the picture. Out of twenty men and women of various ages and backgrounds, fourteen said water skiers; two said a beach setting; one said the ocean; one said the blonde water skier in the yellow bikini; and two said a can of hair spray.
“Let’s try it again down the block,” Borley said. Together the men walked to the corner, and Borley tried the experiment again with practically the same results only this time there was only one noticing the hair spray and five picking out the blonde in the bikini.
Dan was tempted to say “I told you,” but he refrained instead suggesting to Borley how the commercial could be tweaked to produce the desired results. The same was true for the print campaign. Dan offered to test the new version for free whenever Borley wanted. With that he left the ad executive and returned to his own office hoping that his tactic had worked and that he would be getting a phone call in a few days.
Sure enough, on Wednesday, the phone rang.
“Hello,” Dan said. “George, nice to hear from you…of course I meant what I said about testing the commercial…yes, for free…results…probably Friday at the latest…you’ll send it over by courier…sure…I’ll get back to you then…how many people will we be polling...more than the other guys you’ve used in the past, that’s all I can say…sure…I’ll get back to you on Friday…no, it’ll be earlier than that…okay.”
Immediately, he called in Ron who was now in a leave of absence from the college and working full time for Dan, that prospect of an ocean of money as a lure; but the young man was more excited about the work they were doing on human research. Ron could smell a doctorate in his future based upon the results he was helping to make happen.
“A courier is bringing over a tape. I need you to do the substitution tonight. Make sure we do the facial comparison second by second. I need the results by Friday morning,” Dan said. “This is our big chance, so make it happen.”
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