brews it on the sly,” she explained. “Usually she won’t let us take it out because she’s afraid of the Coffiest team. But now that you’re star class-” I thanked her and gave her Jack O’Shea’s tape to put through channels. Then I went to work. First came the matter of the sampling area, and a headache with Matt Runstead. He’s Market Research, and I had to work with and through him. But he didn’t show any inclination to work with me. I put a map of southern California in the projector, while Matt and two of his faceless helpers boredly sprinkled cigarette ashes on my floor. With the pointer I outlined the test areas and controls: “San Diego through Tijuana; half the communities around L.A. and the lower tip of Monterey. Those will be controls. The rest of Cal-Mexico from L.A. down we’ll use for tests. You’ll have to be on the scene, I guess, Matt; I’d recommend our Diego offices as headquarters. Turner’s in charge there and he’s a good man.” Runstead grunted. “Not a flake of snow from year’s end to year’s end. Couldn’t sell an overcoat there if you threw in a slave girl as a premium. For God’s sake, man, why don’t you leave market research to somebody who knows something about it? Don’t you see how climate nulls your sigma?” The younger of his stamped-out-of-tin assistants started to back the boss up, but I cut him off. Runstead had to be consulted on test areas-it was his job. But Venus was my project and I was going to run it. I said, sounding just a little nasty: “Regional and world income, age, density of population, health, psyche-friction, age-group distribution and mortality causes and rates are seven-place sigmas, Matt. Cal-Mex was designed personally by God Himself as a perfect testing area. In a tiny universe of less than a hundred million it duplicates every important segment of North America. I will not change my project and we are going to stick to the area I indicated.” I bore down on the word “my.” Matt said: “It won’t work. The temperature is the major factor. Anybody should be able to see that.” “I’m not just anybody, Matt. I’m the guy in charge.” Matt Runstead stubbed out his cigarette and got up. “Let’s go talk to Fowler,” he said and walked out. There wasn’t anything for me to do except follow him. As I left I heard the older of his helpers picking up the phone to notify Fowler Schocken’s secretary that we
were coming. He had a team all right, that Runstead. I spent a little time wondering how I could build a team like that myself before I got down to the business of planning how to put it to Fowler. But Fowler Schocken has a sure-fire technique of handling inter-staff hassles. He worked it on us. When we came in he said exuberantly: “There you are! The two men I want to see! Matt, can you put out a fire for me? It’s the A.I.G. people. They claim our handling of the PregNot account is hurting their trade. They’re talking about going over to Taunton unless we drop PregNot. Their billing isn’t much, but a birdie told me that Taunton put the idea into their heads.” He went on to explain the intricacies of our relationship with the American Institute of Gynecologists. I listened only halfheartedly; our “Babies without Maybes” campaign on their sex-determination project had given them at least a 20 percent plus on the normal birthrate. They should be solidly ours after that. Run-stead thought so too. He said: “They don’t have a case, Fowler. We sell liquor and hang-over remedies both. They’ve got no business bitching about any other account. Besides, what the hell does this have to do with Market Research?” Fowler chuckled happily. “That’s it!” he crowed. “We throw them a switch. They’ll expect the account executives to give them the usual line-but instead we’ll let you handle them yourself. Snow them under with a whole line of charts and statistics to prove that PregNot never prevents a couple from having a baby; it just permits them to postpone it until they can afford to do the job right. In other words, their unit of sale goes up and their volume stays the same. And-it’ll be one in the eye for Taunton. And-lawyers get disbarred for representing conflicting interests. It’s cost a lot of them a lot of money. We’ve got to make sure that any attempt to foist the same principle on our profession is nipped in the bud. Think you can handle it for the old man, Matt?” “Oh, hell, sure,” Runstead grumbled. “What about Venus?” Fowler twinkled at me. “What about it? Can you spare Matt for a while?” “Forever,” I said. “In fact, that’s what I came to see you about. Matt’s scared of southern California.” Runstead dropped his cigarette and let it lay, crisping the nylon pile of Fowler’s rug. “What the hell-” he started belligerently. “Easy,” said Fowler. “Let’s hear the story, Matt.”