11 The Movies Do It. Advertisers Do It. Why Don’t You Do It?

Many years ago, the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin was being maligned by a dangerous whispering campaign. A malicious rumor was being circulated. Advertisers were being told that the newspaper was no longer attractive to readers because it carried too much advertising and too little news. Immediate action was necessary. The gossip had to be squelched.

But how?

This is the way it was done.

The Bulletin clipped from its regular edition all reading matter of all kinds on one average day, classified it, and published it as a book. The book was called One Day. It contained 307 pages—as many as a hardcover book; yet the Bulletin had printed all this news and feature material on one day and sold it, not for several dollars, but for a few cents.

The printing of that book dramatized the fact that the Bulletin carried an enormous amount of interesting reading matter. It conveyed the facts more vividly, more interestingly, more impressively, than pages of figures and mere talk could have done.

This is a time of dramatization. Merely stating a truth isn’t enough. The truth has to be made vivid, interesting, dramatic. You have to use showmanship. The movies do it. Advertisers do it. And you will have to do it if you want attention.

Experts in window display know the power of dramatization. For example, the manufacturers of a new rat poison gave dealers a window display that included two live rats. The week the rats were shown going about their business, the crowd loved it! Sales zoomed to five times their normal rate.

Too much talk is tiresome. It is ineffective. People like action, dramatic action. For example, the National Cash Register Company discovered that dramatization was the best way to get ideas over to their salespeople, so they once held a three-day sales convention out at Dayton, Ohio, and spent a small fortune bringing their salespeople from all parts of the American continent to attend the convention—and the salespeople thanked their lucky stars because they didn’t have to listen to even one speech about selling! Not one! A speechless convention. All the ideas were presented in little sketches and plays.

One of their employees, Jim Yeamans, told how he made a sale by dramatic demonstration: “Last week I called on a neighborhood grocer and saw that the cash registers he was using at his checkout counters were very old-fashioned. I approached the owner and told him: ‘You know, sir, you are literally throwing away pennies every time a customer goes through your line.’ With that I threw a handful of pennies on the floor. He quickly became more attentive. The mere words should have been of interest to him, but the sound of pennies hitting the floor really stopped him. I was able to get an order from him to replace all of his old machines.”

Mary Catherine Wolf of Mishawaka, Indiana, was having some problems at work and decided that she had to discuss them with the boss. On Monday morning she requested an appointment with him but was told he was very busy and she should arrange with his secretary for an appointment later in the week. The secretary indicated that his schedule was very tight, but she would try to fit her in. Wolf described what happened: “I did not get a reply from her all week long. Whenever I questioned her, she would give me a reason why the boss could not see me. Friday morning came and I had heard nothing definite. I really wanted to see him and discuss my problems before the weekend, so I asked myself how I could get him to see me. What I finally did was this. I wrote him a formal letter. I indicated in the letter that I fully understood how extremely busy he was all week, but it was important that I speak with him. I enclosed a form letter and a self-addressed envelope and asked him to please fill it out or ask his secretary to do it and return it to me. The form letter read as follows: ‘Mary Catherine Wolf—I will be able to see you on _____ at _____ A.M./P.M. I will give you _____ minutes of my time.’

“I put this letter in his in-basket at 11 a.m. At 2 p.m. I checked my mailbox. There was my self-addressed envelope. He had answered my form letter himself and indicated he could see me that afternoon and could give me ten minutes of his time. I met with him, and we talked for over an hour and resolved my problems.

“If I had not dramatized to him the fact that I really wanted to see him, I would probably be still waiting for an appointment.”

James B. Boynton had to present a lengthy market report. His firm had just finished an exhaustive study for a leading brand of cold cream. Data were needed immediately about the competition in this market; the prospective customer was one of the biggest—and most formidable—in the advertising business.

And his first approach failed almost before he began.

“The first time I went in,” Mr. Boynton explains, “I found myself sidetracked into a futile discussion of the methods used in the investigation. The customer argued and I argued. He told me I was wrong, and I tried to prove that I was right.

“I finally won my point, to my own satisfaction—but my time was up, the interview was over, and I still had not produced results.

“The second time, I didn’t bother with tabulations of figures and data. I went to see this man and I dramatized my facts.

“As I entered his office, he was busy on the phone. While he finished his conversation, I opened a suitcase and placed thirty-two jars of cold cream on top of his desk—all products he knew—all competitors of his cream.

“On each jar, I had a tag itemizing the results of the trade investigation. And each tag told its story briefly, dramatically.

“What happened?

“There was no longer an argument. Here was something new, something different. He picked up first one and then another of the jars and read the information on the tag. A friendly conversation developed. He asked additional questions. He was intensely interested. He had originally given me only ten minutes to present my facts, but ten minutes passed, twenty minutes, forty minutes, and at the end of an hour we were still talking.

“I was presenting the same facts this time that I had presented previously. But this time I was using dramatization, showmanship—and what a difference it made.”

PRINCIPLE 11

Dramatize your ideas.