Hucksters Abroad

Up India's Hooghly River one day last February sailed a weird vessel which made even the drowsiest citizens rub their eyes. It looked like a Viking galley, and standing in its prow were warriors dressed like Viking sea kings of old. At Calcutta's Out-ram Ghat pier, one stepped ashore and delivered a pole-sized replica of a new cigarette made by India's Imperial Tobacco Co. Its name: Sea King.

The visitation was a publicity stunt staged by Chicago's Grant Advertising, Inc., which, with 21 offices in 17 lands, bills itself as the world's biggest international ad network (56% of its accounts are foreign).* Last week, at a meeting of its 21 foreign office managers, the hucksters swapped yarns on how admen's problems and solutions vary in different lands. Samples:

P: In India, where kissing in public is taboo, the best one can do is depict a couple exchanging moonstruck gazes.

P: In Hong Kong, the color blue is not used in ads, because it is not associated with good luck.

P: To describe the "dip-free" Sheaffer Snorkel pens in South Africa, Grant had to find a substitute for dip (doop), which means "baptize" in Afrikaans.

P: The reason sales of one toothpaste boomed in Lima, Peru while toothbrush sales sagged was that natives were eating the paste as candy. In South Africa, a sudden liking for a hairdressing was due to natives' using it as a sandwich spread.

P: In Afrikaans, Palmolive's commercial, sung to the tune of "A Tisket, A Tasket," goes like this:

Palm-Olyf haar middel, Palm-Olyf haar

middel,

Hou u hare heeldag netjies, Palm-Olyf haar middel, die familie haar

middel, Jaag die skilfers weg.

Translation:

Palmolive hair tonic, Palmolive hair

tonic,

Keeps your hair neat all the day, Palmolive hair tonic, the family hair

tonic, Chases the dandruff away.

-Grant, with $48 million in billings, was ninth among U.S. ad agencies last year.

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