The commercial viewing 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. Miss Maguire is right, if you had the same resources, your shooting would probably be no worse than mine."
Are you going to sympathize with the losers now? It may be too early. Ronald had experience with the Britons 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 preview was conducted by a junior female manager who announced that there would be two ads for Chewels chewing gum, which would be cycled twice. After reading, please mark your own score on the questionnaire, and the staff will collect their questionnaires 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 twice in a loop. 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 obtained a box of Chewels chewing gum and gave each employee who rated the product a piece of paper to give them a taste of the product.
Upon seeing this, Dan immediately ordered his men to bring 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 filling 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 dissuade the ladies from drinking, 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, averaged 4.2.
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." It’s A/B tested.”
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. There is no need to conduct time-consuming and labor-intensive actual market sales tests.”
"No wonder you never beat David Ogilvy. You don't even know the ABC of voting." The old man left the show 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 divided into left and right parts with a line in the middle. On the left is 1-Uneven Bars, and on the right is 2-Painter. There was a blank space below, without a single question, for the judges to write down what they remembered about the advertising selling points.
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 so much that they picked up their pens and wrote down the advertising selling points 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 results were very one-sided, with all 35 judges remembering the selling point of Ronald's ad which was "Chewels taste better."
And I remember that Hugh Hudson’s advertising selling point was “Because Chewels taste so good, I forgot they were sugar-free” and there were only 16 of them. The rest is either blank or written as the selling point of Ronald's version.
The old man didn't want to admit defeat yet, "The questionnaire is a more scientific design. Your kind of voting is just the tyranny of the majority. People's opinions can't explain anything. The business world still depends on the elite to run."
"What, you accuse the general election of being unscientific? It is the tyranny of the majority?" Ronald said.
"Humph!" The old man said nothing, and just placed the ballots in his hands heavily on the table.
Dan seemed to have found an excuse when he arrived, "Yes, this is not a scientific design. We should adopt the scores from the first questionnaire. That is the scientific result."
"Instead of doing your 'science,' why not ask consumers for their opinions?" Ronald turned to the 35 junior employees.
"Can you tell Director Dan how you felt after eating Chewels gum?"
It was the fat secretary who spoke first, "I think this chewing gum is like candy and delicious. Sugar-free gum has no taste. I feel like vomiting after chewing it twice."
"But this Chewels chewing gum is also sugar-free? The delicious chewing gum makes people forget that it is sugar-free. This is our core idea." Dan was still in a state of confusion and didn't know why his version lost.
The blond secretary also spoke, "Director Dan, we just want to eat something with flavor. This sugar-free chewing gum tastes better. Let's remember this."
"Yeah, there are so many brands of chewing gum that we can't even remember them. When we get to the supermarket, we just remember that Chewels tastes better."
"Yes, I remember the gymnast in the commercial who made out that Chewels chewing gum is thick, different from ordinary thin chewing gum."
Everyone expressed their opinions one by one.
"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 what we have are scientific results."
Seeing that the old man still refused to admit defeat, Darcy Maguire's supporters among the partners were a little tired of this stubborn man who had no other advantages except seniority. The sales results in Cincinnati and Cleveland determine that."
Ronald and Darcy Maguire looked at each other to confirm that the original plan was very beneficial to them, so they nodded in agreement.
Dan's protector among the partners saw that something was not going well and agreed to the 1:1 argument. At least he saved face. Seeing that everyone agreed, the old man snorted and walked out of the door. He planned to return to semi-retirement and resume his travels around the world.
…
Ronald stood at the door and said goodbye to the 35 female judges one by one. At the same time, he gave each of them a few sticks of Chewels chewing gum to express his gratitude.
In the end, the partners agreed to restore the original arrangement. The two pages of advertisements will now be placed in two cities respectively. The winner will be determined by sales volume one month later, and then launched on the national television network.
Dan failed to achieve his goal of suppressing Darcy's creative advertising before testing, and spent a lot of resources to invite the old man to return to the company, which resulted in a lot of losses. He left first with his men. He probably would have to think of some ways to influence the results during the tests in the two cities.
Hugh Hudson arrived thoughtfully and did not leave with Dan. He waited for Ronald to finish sending off the female judges, and then took the initiative to congratulate them, "Congratulations to you, Ronald and Darcy."
"Thank you, we have another competition."
"No, the next thing has nothing to do with me. It was filmed and handed over to BBDO. As for whether it will be released nationwide, that is Dan's job." Hugh Hudson still prefers Rona to the judges collectively. Germany's version is a bit confusing.
"If you don't mind, could 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 only wanted to make the movie aesthetically pleasing and become an "auteur-director", forgetting all common sense.
"They all work as secretaries, receptionists, or artists. They are busy every day. There are so many things waiting for them to deal with. How can they have the brains to memorize such complex ideas? Mr. Hudson?"
"Only things that can be explained clearly in one sentence will be remembered by them."
"What can be said clearly in one sentence?" Hugh Hudson remembered this sentence and thought to himself, "Last year's Midnight Express was the story of an American's escape from prison in Turkey. This year's film by Allen is famous all over the world. It’s a story about an art school student, so it seems that I have to take on David Putnam’s story about a British sprinter winning gold in the Olympics as my first directorial work…”
