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International Socialist Review, Fall 1958

 

Pep, Piffle and Fizzle

 

From International Socialist Review, Vol.19 No.4, Fall 1958, p.114.
Transcription & mark-up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.

 

Printers’ Ink, which is trying to persuade advertisers that the depression is over, was critical in its Aug. 1 issue of the auto industry’s recent sales campaign:

“What should be done when people don’t buy? The favorite answer during the recession was ‘more old-fashioned hard sell ...’ That was typified by the You Auto Buy Now campaigns held in 264 cities in the past five months. If there was such a thing as the hard sell, that was it.

“Most cities had a parade – new cars, old cars, stage coaches, fire engines, all graced with pretty girls or circus clowns. The streets of staid Evanston, a Chicago suburb, rocked to the music of a wheezing calliope. Salesmen all wore ‘Keep the economy strong’ buttons, and streamers that appeal to patriotism blazoned in the streets.

“This sort of hoopla reached its ultimate when William Power, Chevrolet’s national ad manager, rode into the Madison Square Garden rally in New York astride an elephant, wearing a pith helmet, firing blank cartridges, and shouting, ‘Pep without purpose is piffle!’”

Printers’ Ink noted sardonically that auto sales dropped during the campaign from 1957s level of 4,993,607 to 3,762,806 in the same five-month period, a loss of 1,230,801 models.

 
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