Exploiting Hollywood 1980

Watching advertisements and on-site voting were held in bbdo's largest conference room. A total of 35 female employees crowded into the conference room, standing or sitting in the back row.

Everyone holds a questionnaire and a ballpoint pen in their hands, waiting to score the questionnaire after the advertisement is placed.

On the surface, Hugh Hudson, the advertising director of the other party, seemed to be a man who abided by the rules of the game. He took the initiative to say hello to Ronald and Darcy, "No matter who wins or loses today, they should be respected. In fact, I I really like your shooting method. Ms. Maguire is right. If you had the same resources, you would probably be able to shoot no worse than me.”

Are you going to sympathize with the losers now? It may be too early. Ronald had experience with the British and knew that they were not necessarily as polite as they appeared.

"It's not necessarily worse than you now, Mr. Hudson." Ronald replied.

Hugh Hudson showed a helpless smile, as if he had nothing to do with the blind courage of the young nephews, "Okay, let's wait and see the results of the judges' votes."

The trial rating is conducted by a junior female manager. After her announcement, please mark your rating on the questionnaire. The staff will collect their questionnaire later.

The video recorder played the advertisement on the large-screen color TV placed at one end of the conference table, and the female judges watched it intently.

Soon the two commercials were played in a loop twice. Ronald's version of the uneven bars was called Advertising No. 1, and Hugh Hudson's version was named Advertising No. 2.

35 female employees rated two advertisements on questionnaires.

The host began to ask the judges to hand the questionnaires into their hands, and a dedicated person began to calculate the average score, and announced that their work was completed and they could leave.

"Wait a minute, I hope these 35 female judges will stay for a while and wait until the results are calculated before leaving." Darcy Maguire urged them to stay for a while.

Darcy Maguire got a box of chewels chewing gum and gave each employee who rated it a piece of chewing gum to let them taste the product first.

Upon seeing this, Dan immediately ordered his men to move in a few boxes of Coca-Cola and gave a bottle to the female employees. Ronald smiled at him. This guy thought he was trying to bribe the judges and was not very clear about the situation.

The judges began to hand in their completed questionnaires, and then they all started to eat chewing gum, each of them showing surprise. The center of Chewels chewing gum was fruit-flavored, which was the first time for female employees to eat it, and it tasted pretty good.

Some people even opened cans of Coke on the spot and drank it. Suddenly, the sound of popping the can was heard, which made the gray-haired elderly partner very dissatisfied and gave Dan a dirty look. Now Dan asked his men to persuade the ladies not to drink yet, causing a mess in the conference room.

The host quickly got the score results. Ronald's No. 1 got an average score of 3.6. No. 2, Hugh Hudson, had a 4.2 average.

Because the judges did not know who took the first shot and who took the second shot, the scoring process was fairly fair, and neither Dan nor Darcy expressed any objection.

The white-haired partner motioned to the host to quiet down everyone and announced the results. All senior managers present and the 35 judges heard the results. The judges didn't know who took which shot, and they looked at everyone's faces to deduce the outcome.

Ronald was a little surprised. Although the questionnaire questions clearly favored the other party, there was not a big gap in the final scores.

This will be easier to handle.

Darcy Maguire was the first to attack, "The score difference is not big. We should go back to the original plan and let the test results determine which idea is finally adopted."

Dan sneered, but seeing that there were many female judges present, he did not say anything bad, "The first version has a score of 3.6, and the second version has a score of 4.2. There are different numbers in single digits, a 12% difference, there is no need to waste resources." On a/b test.”

The gray-haired old partner stood up and said, "The questionnaire is scientific. It is a scientific method that uses statistics to reflect public opinion. You all cast your vote. This is America's 200-year tradition. We This tradition should be respected and there is no need to conduct time-consuming and labor-intensive actual market sales tests.”

"No wonder you can never win against David Ogilvy. You don't even know the ABCs of voting." The old man left in person. Darcy Maguire was an employee of bbdo and it was inconvenient to come forward to refute. According to the plan, Ronald started scolding .

The old man opened his eyes wide, as if he didn't believe that anyone dared to contradict him face to face.

Ronald quickly distributed the 35 ballots in his hand to all the judges, "Each ballot has two columns, 1 and 2, which represent the two pages of advertisements for uneven bars and painters respectively. Please write down what you remember. Two advertising selling points, I’ll collect them later.”

Ronald actually had more than 35 votes in his hand, all of which were prepared by Darcy Maguire before. The votes were separated into left and right parts by lines in the middle. On the left is 1-Uneven Bars, and on the right is 2-Painter. Advertising selling point.

Ronald also gave one to the old man, and sent the rest to the two partners and Dan's people. "There are only two options on the ballot, the Donkey Party candidate or the Elephant Party candidate, remember? Voting is a civic duty, so remember to vote."

Then he turned to the 35 female judges and said, "This is not a promotion test. There is no need for correct answers. Just write down what you remember. If you can't remember, leave it blank. We will not use anonymous votes to check. your memory."

The beauties laughed and picked up pens to write down the selling points of the advertisements they remembered in the blank spaces.

Soon the judges finished writing down the selling points they remembered. After Ronald collected them, he read out the votes to the host on the spot and counted the votes on the mobile whiteboard.

The result was very one-sided. 35 judges remembered that the selling point of Ronald's advertisement was "chewels tastes better."

Only 16 remembered that the selling point of Hugh Hudson's advertisement was "Because Chewels tastes good, I forgot that it is sugar-free." The rest were either blank or filled with the selling points of Ronald's version.

The old man didn't want to admit defeat, "The questionnaire is a more scientific design. Your voting is just the tyranny of the majority. The opinions of the people can't explain anything. The business world still depends on the elites to run it."

"Why, you accuse the president's election of being unscientific? It's the tyranny of the majority?" Ronald said.

"Humph!" The old man didn't say anything, but just put the ballot in his hand heavily on the table.

Dan seemed to have found an excuse, "Yes, this is not a scientific design. We should adopt the scores of the first questionnaire, which is the scientific result."

"Instead of doing your 'science', why not ask consumers for their opinions?" Ronald turned to the 35 low-level employees.

"Can you tell Director Dan what you feel after eating Chewels gum?"

The fat secretary spoke first, "I think this gum is like candy and tastes good. Sugar-free gum has no taste. I want to vomit after chewing it twice."

"But this Chewels gum is also sugar-free? Delicious gum makes people forget that it is sugar-free. This is our core idea." Dan was still out of his mind and didn't know why his version lost.

The blonde secretary also spoke up, "Director Dan, we just want to eat something with flavor. This sugar-free gum tastes better, so we remember that."

"Yeah, there are so many brands of gum that we can't remember them all. When we got to the supermarket, we only remembered that Chewels tasted better."

"Yes, I just remember that the gymnast in the advertisement made Chewels gum thick, which is different from the usual thin gum."

Everyone expressed their opinions one after another.

"How is it? Did we win this review?" Darcy Maguire asked the three partners.

The old man recovered from Ronald's offense, "You may have the support of 35 secretaries, but we have scientific results."

Seeing that the old man still refused to admit defeat, Darcy Maguire's supporters among the partners were a little fed up with this stubborn guy who had no advantages except seniority, "Then let's make it 1:1. Let's stick to the original plan and let the sales results of Cincinnati and Cleveland decide."

Ronald and Darcy Maguire confirmed their eyes. The original plan was very beneficial to them, so they nodded in agreement.

Dan's protector among the partners saw that things were not going well and agreed to the 1:1 statement. At least he saved face. Seeing that everyone agreed, the old man snorted and walked out the door. He planned to return to semi-retirement and resume his world travel.

...

Ronald stood at the door and said goodbye to the 35 female judges one by one, and gave each of them a few chews of chewing gum to express his gratitude.

Finally, the partners agreed to restore the original arrangement. The two versions of the advertisement will be released in two cities respectively. After a month, the sales will determine the winner and then be launched on the national TV network.

Dan did not achieve his goal of suppressing Darcy's creative advertisement before the test. He spent a lot of resources to invite the old man back to the company, and he lost a lot of money. He left first with his men. It is estimated that in the test of the two cities, he will have to think of some ways to try to influence the results.

Hugh Hudson was thoughtful and did not leave with Dan. He waited for Ronald to send off the female judges, and took the initiative to congratulate them, "Congratulations, Ronald, Darcy."

"Thank you, we still have a competition."

"No, the next thing has nothing to do with me. It's finished and handed over to bbdo. As for whether it will be used for national release, that's Dan's job." Hugh Hudson still couldn't understand why the judges collectively preferred Ronald's version.

"If you don't mind, can you tell me why these female secretaries and receptionists remember the selling points of your advertisements but not mine? I know you can't cheat."

Ronald smiled. These artists were so focused on making the film beautiful and being an "author director" that they forgot common sense.

"They are all secretaries, receptionists, or artists. They are busy every day, with so many things waiting for them to deal with. How can they have the brains to remember such complex ideas, Mr. Hudson?"

"Only things that can be explained clearly in one sentence will be remembered by them."

"Things that can be explained clearly in one sentence?" Hugh Hudson remembered this sentence and thought to himself, "Last year's Midnight Express was a story about an American escaping from a prison in Turkey, and this year's Fame, which Allen shot, is a story about art school students. It seems that I still have to take David Putnam's story about a British sprinter winning a gold medal in the Olympics as my first directorial work..."