The Terrible Privacy Of Maxwell Sim

‘Yes – that’s it.’

‘There’s more,’ Trevor said. ‘You don’t know the half of it yet. Lindsay’s playing her cards far too close to her chest. Come on, Lindsay, tell him about the campaign. Tell him about your masterstroke.’

‘OK.’

Lindsay reached into her handbag and took out an impossibly compact and glossy white notebook computer. Within seconds of her touching the spacebar it had shimmered into life, and she was on the first page of a PowerPoint presentation. The illustration appeared to show a map of the British Isles.

‘Now the thing is, Max, we already have a great product here, and we already have a powerful slogan. In a slightly more relaxed economic environment, that would usually be enough. But the way things are at the moment, we have to try a little bit harder. That’s my job, essentially: that’s what a PR person does. You’ve got to get hold of the package, which could be as dull as an old tin box, and you’ve got to dress it up, make it a bit Christmassy, so that it appears attractive.’

‘Find a gimmick, you mean.’

‘Well …’ Lindsay looked doubtful. ‘I don’t really care for that word.’

‘Me neither,’ said Trevor.

‘What I was looking for,’ said Lindsay, ‘was a way of taking that phrase – “We Reach Furthest” – and getting even more mileage out of it. Pushing it as far as it would go. Let’s face it, oral hygiene is a hard sell. What we have here is an amazing toothbrush – a revolutionary toothbrush – but it’s not easy to get people to see it that way. For most people, a toothbrush is a toothbrush is a toothbrush. It’s an object. A useful object, definitely. But still – people aren’t interested in objects. If you want to sell something, you have to dramatize it. You have to turn it into a story. What’s more, if what you’re trying to sell is the best of its kind, you have to give it the best kind of story. You have to do it justice. Now, what do you think is the best kind of story, Max?’

I wasn’t expecting this. ‘Boy meets girl?’ I said, hopefully.

‘Not bad. That’s certainly one of the best. But try to think of something a bit more archetypal than that. Think of the Odyssey. Think of King Arthur and the Holy Grail. Think of Lord of the Rings.’

Now I was stuck. I hadn’t read the Odyssey or Lord of the Rings, and King Arthur and the Holy Grail made me think of Monty Python.

‘The quest,’ Lindsay said at last, when it became clear that I didn’t know the answer. ‘The journey. The voyage of discovery.’ She pointed at the screen of her laptop, indicating, in turn, four red crosses that had been marked at various points on the edges of her map. ‘Do you know what these are, Max? These are the four extreme inhabited points of the United Kingdom. The settlements that are further north, south, east and west than any others. Here we are – look! Unst, in the Shetland Islands, to the north of Scotland. St Agnes, one of the Scilly Isles, off the coast of Cornwall. Manger Beg, in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. And Lowestoft, at the very eastern tip of Suffolk in England. We’ve done our research and we’ve established that none of our rivals, none of the big corporations, have managed to get a foothold in those places. Some of them, yes – but not all four. But supposing we did? Supposing we were able to claim, at next month’s showcase, that we were the only company whose products were on sale in each of those locations? Do you know what that would give us the right to say?’

Trevor and Lindsay both looked at me, leaning forward in their chairs, breathless with anticipation. I glanced from one to the other. Simultaneously, their mouths started to form the first word, the beginning of the slogan they were willing me to pronounce. It looked like a ‘w’ sound.

‘“W … W … We … ?”’ I began, interrogatively, and when they both responded with an eager nod, my confidence mounted and I was able to complete the phrase: ‘“We reach furthest! ”’

Trevor sat back and spread his hands, with the proudest of smiles beaming from his fleshy, good-natured face. ‘Simple, isn’t it? Simple, but beautiful. The IP 009 reaches furthest, and the company itself reaches furthest. Product and distributor working together in perfect synergy.’

He began to tell me more about the campaign that they had in mind. A team of four salesmen would set off in their cars, at noon on the same Monday morning, from the company’s office in Reading. They would each take with them a box full of samples, and a digital video camera, so that they could keep video diaries of their journeys. They would set off in four different directions, each heading for one of the extreme points of the United Kingdom. There would be a prize for the first salesman to arrive back at the office after reaching his destination (although this was really a foregone conclusion, since Lowestoft was so much closer than the others) but essentially they would be encouraged to take as long as they wanted, within reason. The company had allowed for five nights’ hotel expenses, and the real object was to make the video diaries as interesting as possible: when the sales team returned, their footage would be cut together in time for the Dental Trade Association fair and made into a twenty-minute film to be looped continuously on a video monitor at the Guest Toothbrushes stand.

‘Sounds fantastic,’ I agreed.

‘It will be,’ said Trevor. ‘It’s going to blow people away. Can you imagine the impact of that film? A radical breakthrough in toothbrush design, coupled with breathtaking shots of the British countryside at its wildest and most remote. I’m creaming my trousers just thinking about it. The only thing is … We still have one problem. We’re a man short.’

He looked at me, and at last the penny started to drop.

‘Guest Toothbrushes,’ Lindsay explained, ‘is a small organization. That’s Alan’s vision, and that’s how he wants to keep it. There are just ten of us, and there’s only one man on the sales team.’

‘David Webster’s his name,’ said Trevor. ‘Excellent guy. First rate rep. He’s going to do the Northern Ireland leg for us.’

‘What about the others?’

‘Well, a couple of us are going to muck in. I’ll be going down to the Scillies, and our accounts honcho will be heading off to Lowestoft for a couple of days. But as far as Shetland is concerned, we need to buy someone in for the week. Someone with sales experience, obviously, and someone who isn’t working at the moment. Which is why, Maxwell, my old chum –’ (He laid a friendly hand on my knee) ‘– my thoughts turned immediately to you.’