A satire on corporate business practices. |
I never assumed marketing a car with an exploding fuel tank would cause so many problems. As a CEO I felt it would benefit the American consumer, given the adventurous nature of our culture. When we introduced the Nova it became the hottest sports car in its class. Our market share grew so rapidly the major automakers trembled. In fact, they even considered filing an anti-trust suit with the Justice Department. Our success centered on the brilliant advertising campaign of my lawyer and vice-president of consumer research/propaganda, William Goebbels. Together we created a series of commercials that appealed to the thrill-seeking nature of our 16-40 target audience. We showed the Nova driving through rain-forests, baseball stadiums, and county-fairs, with loud irrational music in the background. The sight of the sleek panther structured framework, combined with the glaring, lacquer colored paint, mesmerized the consumer. In a year we had half the market. Then someone discovered a slight problem. According to our chief engineer, due to a design flaw, up to 15% of the fuel tanks had the potential to explode. The good news was that I finally knew what I would buy my mother-in-law for her birthday. I called an emergency meeting. Along with Goebbels and all executives, I assembled an array of accountants accompanied by their assistants. They punched away on their hand held calculators. We performed one of the most highly regarded practices in the business community, the cost-benefit analysis. With our keen intellects we estimated the cost of all expenses incurred in not recalling the Nova. This included lawsuits, replacement vehicles, refunds, etc. We juxtaposed them with the cost of recalling the vehicles. After 23 million key strokes we reached a decisive conclusion. The price of recalling would be approximately $14.52 per vehicle; the cost of leaving the vehicle on the road came to $14.51. A clear outcome. We would not recall the Nova. A few executives tried objecting, but my decision was final. Before they left I said, “You can’t argue with numbers!” My adviser Goebbels walked over to me and stated that my firm leadership was unparalleled in corporate America. Despite the flattering comment, I’ve always been a man way too modest to accept praise. I smiled at him, stating, “It’s all about serving the customer.” We would’ve had a fairy tale ending except for one problem. Over the last twenty years, there emerged an organization that replaced the unions as the most painful thorn in the side of corporate management: the consumer advocates. In the most irresponsible manner they publicized every explosion. The media frenzy created such bad publicity, our sales slumped. The most antagonistic of these advocates was the lawyer John C. Rambler, a man whose reputation for ruining the image of companies surpassed Ralph Nader. Rambler had a special vendetta against my corporation ever since one of our defective air bags prematurely ejected, giving his roving pit bull a black eye. So he jumped on this opportunity. I began to doubt our strategy. In the cost benefit analysis we never calculated the price of bad publicity. My professors at Harvard Business School never taught us how to calculate the monetary damage of showing an exploding vehicle on the five o’clock news. They referred us to an ethics class when the question came up. There seemed to be no alternative, but to recall the Novas. Then my adviser Goebbels gave some invaluable insight, which attested to his knowledge of the consumer mind. Instead of wasting billions on a recall, we could instead invest more into advertising to offset this publicity. Goebbels had a Phd in psychology; he explained his study of our culture showed the average individual had an inclination towards reckless experiences. Sitting back in my suede leather chair, he argued that the target consumer had a sub-conscious desire to take risks. “Observe the behavior you see on television, Mr. Grayson,” he stated. Taking a remote control, he clicked some slides onto the projection screen. I saw people sky diving, white water rafting, drive by shootings, and posters of action adventure movies, juxtaposed with a human brain in the background. “The average customer in our target segment doesn’t care about quality. They want image and glamour,” he remarked, taking off his 14k gold rimmed glasses. “Wait a minute. Are you saying the consumer will subordinate safety in order to improve their image?” I questioned. “Precisely. We can’t compete with the Japanese and Germans in quality, but instead we should give the people what they desire. Adventure!” It hit me like a divine revelation. I finally understood the mind of this marketing genius. We could maintain our sales despite the efforts of these consumer advocates. It’s in the nature of our society to seek out image in a car before safety. In fact, subconsciously, the risk of owning an American car that explodes is enticing to customers because of the subliminal patriotic implications. Why would an American buy a Nova opposed to a better built German or Japanese car? Because they know in the back of their minds it symbolizes why we’re a great country. It reminds us why we beat them during World War II, which is that we’re superior to them at building things that can explode. It brought us back to the cost benefit analysis. The consumer would be willing to put up with a certain amount of “cost” (The danger of an explosion.), if the “benefit” (The idea of driving a car, which would make them feel good about themselves.) was greater than that “cost.” We picked up our cell-phones, calling executives to stop the recall. Instead we held a meeting to design an advertising campaign that required three times the annual budget, that would describe the Nova as the car for the adventurer. This amount of saturation into the public mind would offset the negative publicity of Mr. Rambler. Despite reports of explosions, and expenses from lawsuits, our sales rebounded. Things were so positive we drafted a design for a new vehicle that had a fuel tank four times the normal size planted on the front fender called: the Supernova. Our nemesis continued to counterattack with ads of his own, but we had more funds. We would have won this conflict, except for an incredible phenomena. Due to the unique frame work of the Nova, the bursting flames would often interact with the graphical wire design creating unusual patterns of fire. Some observers testified that the fire from the explosions resembled the pattern of an Indian chief, another reported the image of Frank Sinatra, and one student from Berkeley thought he saw a pizza with extra anchovies. All these visions combined were harmless compared to a pattern that often occurred during a collision. During such an event the flames would resemble a fist with the middle-index finger pointing out. This event turned into disaster when Rambler made a commercial from footage of one explosion. I sat in my 42 room mansion as I watched his ad on my wide-screen television. I saw a recorded explosion of the flames coalescing into a middle-finger. In the background the voice of Mr. Rambler said, “This is what CEO Grayson thinks of consumer safety.” I ran out of my mansion. In a patriotic fervor I jumped into my 98 Mercedes, and raced downtown to our corporate building. I entered the public relations department and saw all 85 employees running in disarray. The blow by Rambler was an unforeseen masterstroke. In one daring maneuver he erased all the emotion based conditioning of our advertising. The reason? He countered with the one image that more than any other spoke to the heart and mind of American society: the middle finger. In a few months our market share dropped 60%. We tried all kinds of promotional enticements like offering a case of #10 sun block with every car, or a hat with a very large brim. It came to no avail. According to Goebbels the only way we could turn the tide of lagging sales was to discredit the source of the attack. Mr. Rambler was in the middle of a liability suit against the Nova. For the past several months he had been guaranteeing a victory in the media. If we could defeat him in this high-profile case, we could strike at his credibility, and win back our market share. There remained one problem. The trial, in its later stages, according to our chief-lawyer Goebbels, had gone terribly wrong. Every scientific expert testified to the explosive nature of the fuel tanks. I began pacing in my office with my diamond studded walking stick. Then Goebbels walked in with his bent vulture shaped frame, carrying a 200 page profile of the jurists. He proclaimed the jury had a strong inclination to be swayed by theatrical presentations. Placing the report on my desk he said, “Half of these jurors own SUV’s. And best of all most of them once had cosmetic surgery.” Even more encouraging was his study on the presiding Judge Blackmon. Despite having a rough exterior, he once had his balding head refurbished with implants. Our scheme was basic, we would invite the jury to a local racetrack to testify to the safe nature of the Nova. The demonstration would be regulated by the Transportation Commission, who would allow the plaintiffs to choose the vehicle from our factory. What they didn’t know is Goebbels had several paid contacts in the department that would allow us to gain access to the car a day before, to replace the fuel tank. Before Goebbels left my office to implement the plan, I grabbed him by the shoulder and said, “Remember we’re doing this for the customer. Don’t you realize if it wasn’t for them we would be nothing?” Rambler’s camp jumped at the offer, his engineers would immediately find the explosive Nova. He stood up in his crisp green suit, brimming with confidence. At first Judge Blackmon hesitated, but soon changed his mind when he heard the event would cause an array of reporters to attend. The day before the event a problem arose. Due to poor inventory management, we couldn’t find a safe fuel tank for the Nova. I took out my cell-phone to call the head mechanic. “Listen, I don’t care how you fix this problem. Do it, or you’re fired!” Fear makes people do smart things. He called several hours later and informed me that the car would be safe to drive. I felt the dawn of a new day break as Goebbels and I drove down to the racetrack. The twelve jurors, along with Rambler and the plaintiffs sat in the stands. We provided pennants for the jurors who waved them. Rambler again had on that sickening crisp green suit. On the racetrack Judge Blackmon meandered, preening his implanted hair, waving at the thousands of reporters. Before the car had even arrived, they had been swayed by the public relations event. The loud music echoed through the stands, the bright flags blew in triumph. Then with a loud noise, the Nova raced out of the concrete tunnel like a victorious Roman chariot. When it reached the speed most of them usually exploded, Rambler leaped to his feet screaming, “Objection your honor! They’re making a mockery of these proceedings!” But Blackmon was too busy shaking hands with reporters, and listening to our praises of his judicial wisdom. We invited him for a test drive. As we roared around the course, skidding like teenagers on vacation, we noticed the car affected his senses. Reclining back in the synthetic leather seats, he looked 20 years younger. Surely he imagined how the photographs of this ride would help his bid for the Supreme Court. Leaning back further he said, “You two have quite a piece of machinery here. It looks like you have this case won,” winking . I sat amazed at his foresight. To thank him, I assured him we would raise funds for his lobbying efforts to reach the Supreme Court. “We could always use an honest judge working on our behalf,” Goebbels explained. Upon exiting the vehicle the jurors along with the reporters stood on their feet applauding. The Pavlovian conditioning from our advertising had revived. I looked at Rambler. He had a look of juvenile contempt, like Al Gore after election night, refusing to concede defeat. I didn’t want to win, I wanted to humiliate him. So I proposed a stunt that would prove once and for all the safety of the Nova. We would take my car and crash it into the Nova. The car would be driven at 30 MPH a speed where any normal tank would remain inert. The reporters with renewed excitement positioned their cameras for the spectacle. Rambler ran to anyone within reach, trying to convince them of the fraud. As my Mercedes headed towards the side of the Nova. I felt I had just won an academy award, so I had to thank someone. Picking up my cell-phone I called the head mechanic to praise him for reworking the vehicle. He was grateful for the bonus I gave him. He excitedly explained how hard he labored to fix the problem. Appreciating his improvisational skills I asked, “By the way, just how did you replace that fuel tank?” With an air of confidence he said, “Actually I couldn‘t find one for the car so I made some adjustments near the tank. Everything will go fine. Well, as long as you don‘t have a side impact collision.” I froze in paralysis. In that moment the car struck the Nova. As a giant orange burst of fire erupted I saw the hopes of an ideal consumed in a conflagration. Gone were my dreams of easy market share, exponential profits, and fame. Due to the collision angle; the shape of the flames coalesced with slight variations. The flames formed the fist with the middle finger, but at a horizontal angle. The higher octane fuel interacting with the matrix framework of the Nova caused the middle finger to shoot out an extra 80 yards, striking Judge Blackmon who had his back turned, waving to the photographers. The horizontal fingered inferno struck Blackmon on the back of the head. The unique ingredients in his hair implants interacted with the fire, curling up, and embedded into his head like crop circles. For a few seconds there was silence. Then I heard a squealing laugh piercing off the stadium walls. In the stands I saw Rambler on his back laughing with hysteria. Needless to say Judge Blackmon later threw me and Goebbels in jail for contempt. Legend has it he was hanging from a pair of stirrups preparing for a skin graph when he gave the order. I’m sure his anger became intolerable when a engineer he consulted theorized he would never be able to delete the circular images on his head. The Nobel Prize winning engineer insisted they had become ingrained on his head like a shadow after a nuclear explosion. When the trial finished, the jury had awarded the plaintiffs 2.4 million for compensatory damage along with 8.2 billion for punitive damages. The 8.2 billion composed our advertising budget. Without advertising we now have no way to increase sales. The only way to make a profit is to cut costs. I feel very confident I can do this while avoiding controversy. I just had a meeting with the CEO of Bridgestone/Firestone, and he said he could sell us some tires at a very low price. We should have them in a couple of months. Just in time for my mother-in-law’s birthday. |