Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - S1E13 - When Brands Houdini

Episode Date: March 31, 2012

This episode is about how major brands in our lives simply vanish. One of magician Harry Houdini's most famous tricks was to make a 5-ton elephant disappear in front of large audiences. Marketing has its own version of that trick. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. As you may know, we've been producing a lot of bonus episodes while under the influences on hiatus. They're called the Beatleology Interviews, where I talk to people who knew the Beatles, work with them, love them, and the authors who write about them. Well, the Beatleology Interviews have become a hit, so we are spinning it out to be a standalone podcast series. You've already heard conversations with people like actors Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, and Beatles confidant Astrid Kershaw. But coming up, I talk to May Pang, who dated John Lennon in the mid-70s. I talk to double fantasy guitarist Earl Slick, Apple Records creative director John Kosh. I'll be talking to Jan Hayworth,

who designed the Sgt. Pepper album cover. Very cool. And I'll talk to singer Dion, who is one of only five people still alive who were on the Sgt. Pepper cover. And two of those people were Beatles. The stories they tell are amazing. So thank you for making this series such a success. And please, do me a favor, follow the Beatleology interviews on your podcast app. You don't even have to be a huge Beatles fan, you just have to love storytelling.

Subscribe now, and don't miss a single beat. From the Under the Influence digital box set, this episode is from Season 1, 2012. You're so king in it. You're lovin' it in style. Your teeth look whiter than noon, noon, noon. You're not you when you're hungry. You're in good hands with us.

You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. Ladies and gentlemen, in introducing my original invention, the water trotter cell, although there is nothing supernatural about it. His name was Harry Houdini. He was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1874. His birth name was Eric Weiss. He sailed to the United States in 1878 with his family and settled in Wisconsin. Ten years later, the Weiss family moved to New York City. Eric made his public debut at nine years of age as a trapeze artist and showed an early glimpse of his showmanship when he billed

himself as Eric the Prince of the Air. His career as a professional magician began in 1891 at the age of 17. That year, he changed his name to Harry Houdini, inspired by his hero, French magician Robert Houdini. Houdini initially focused on traditional card tricks, but found little success. That all changed when he added handcuff escapes to his act. Soon Houdini was one of the most popular acts on the vaudeville circuit. In each new town, he would offer $100 to anyone

who could provide handcuffs he could not escape from. He never had to pay the $100, and his escapes would baffle the police. In the early 1900s, Houdini expanded his escape routines to include prison cells and straitjackets. On January 7, 1918, Houdini performed one of his most legendary illusions at the Hippodrome Theater in New York. He made an elephant disappear. The illusion called for a cabinet, a huge elephant, and a team of 12 strong men.

As the pachyderm thundered across the stage to the audience's alarm, Houdini shouted, Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce Jenny, the world's only disappearing elephant. Houdini then proceeded to walk the elephant inside the cabinet, which was 26 inches above the floor, then he closed the doors. The cabinet was slowly turned in a complete circle by the 12 men, which took a full 8 minutes as the elephant weighed 5 tons. But when Houdini threw the cabinet doors open,

the elephant had disappeared. The vanishing elephant became one of Houdini's most famous tricks, and he performed it in front of a million people over the course of his career. For more than 90 years, long after Houdini's death, the magic craft by which he made this huge beast disappear remained a secret even other magicians failed to solve. When huge things disappear, it is always astonishing.

In the world of marketing, that trick has a rich history. Numerous huge brands, many the elephants of their categories, have completely disappeared. These brands were also major advertisers, and their messages danced across our TV screens for decades. Then, something happens, and the companies vanish. The list is long, and their stories are fascinating, when big brands pull a Houdini. You're under the influence. Young Johnny Steele has an Oldsmobile.

He loves a dear little girl. When you talk about advertisers that once ruled the airwaves, who have now vanished, a good place to start is with the auto industry. Take Oldsmobile. It was founded by Ransom Olds in 1897. In its 107-year history, it would go on to produce over 35 million cars. It predated the Ford Motor Company and was the first car to be built on an assembly line,

an innovation often mistakenly credited to Ford, who eventually created the moving assembly line. Oldsmobile created many iconic models, and its advertising was a familiar and perennial presence in our lives. If you have a perceptive eye for beauty, for the dramatic, for true elegance, you owe it to yourself to take the wheel of the beautiful, dramatically new luxury sedan by Oldsmobile. The 98 luxury sedan is the flagship of the Oldsmobile line for 1963. The epitome of elegance and distinction that brings a new measure of excitement to motoring. It is truly a styling and engineering achievement. Oldsmobile's crowning creation in the fine art of automotive craftsmanship and design. The 98 luxuryan by Oldsmobile.

Olds brought us many firsts, like the first fully automatic transmission, the first turbocharged engine, and the first modern front-wheel drive car produced in North America. And when it wanted to reposition itself as more youthful, it even hired Ringo Starr and his daughter to prove it wasn't your father's Oldsmobile. This way, Mr. Starr. Life with me dad's a real scream.

He's a star vehicle like my own new Cutlass Supreme. It's a fab photo that really screams. Hello, Debbie. This is not your father's Oldsmobile. This is the new generation of oldsmobile.

But after 107 years, it was phased out by General Motors for underperforming. To that point, in 2004, it was the oldest surviving American automobile mark and one of the oldest in the world after Daimler and Peugeot. Another major brand that suffered a similar fate was none other than Pontiac. It had been around since 1926 and had brought us such iconic lines as the Trans Am and the Firebird. This is the beginning of tomorrow. The Firebird for drivers.

It begins with scoops that scoop when you order the Ram Air. It begins with standard front-wheel disc brakes and the sleek styling you'd expect from Pontiac. This is the beginning of tomorrow. The all-new Pontiac Firebirds are here. The brand also inspired the 1964 hit song GTO, when Pontiac chief engineer John DeLorean designed what was believed to be the first muscle car.

In a bit of foreshadowing, this Pontiac ad from 2005 used the Clash song Should I Stay or should I go? Darling, you've got to let me know Should I stay or should I go? If you say that you are mine I'll be here till the end of time Darling, you've got to let me know Should I stay or should I go?

The 2005 GTO is coming. Four years later, in the bailout of the American auto industry, it was time to go. GM discontinued the brand. The mighty Pontiac line, a staple of the automotive industry and a major advertising presence in our lives, disappeared into the distance. Once upon a time, a lot of shopping was done via catalogs. And if you're over 40, you may remember anxiously waiting for a certain catalog

to be dropped on your doorstep every season from a store called Consumers Distributing. Every day it's Rich for Canada's Best Seller Consumers, we've got the brands, we've got the prices Consumers Distributing, Rich for Canada's Best Seller and Consumers We've got the brands, we've got the prices Consumers Distributing, rich for Canada's best seller on value Consumers Distributing started in 1957. The first store was opened in Toronto and it had an unusual merchandising strategy. It offered the public deep discounts on a wide array of products

by maintaining the merchandise in a warehouse stocking system instead of displaying the goods in costly showrooms. You browsed a catalog instead of a store, made your choices, then went to a consumer's distributing outlet to pick up your purchase. You may remember how the process worked. You would stand at a counter in the store, flip through a catalog, find your product, then write down the six-digit item number on an order form using small, blue, golf-like pencils. Next, you would stand in line, work your way up to the cashier,

give your order form to the consumer's distributing staff, pay for it, then wait for your item to come rolling out on a conveyor belt. As one blogger hilariously said, it brought the, quote, Soviet shopping experience to Canadians. Fill out a form, wait in line, find out the item was not in stock. Oh, how I remember that happening to me time and again.

I would pour through the catalog, fill out the form, only to discover it was out of stock. A problem that would haunt the store years later. At its peak in 1981, consumers distributing operated 243 outlets in Canada and another 217 in the United States. You could buy everything from wedding rings to electronics, kitchenware, music players, toys, watches, furniture, and appliances. Consumers Distributing was also a heavy retail advertiser. At one point, it employed actress Shirley Jones, the ultimate TV mom, as their spokesperson. Consumers catalog showrooms sell name brands at surprisingly low prices. I was amazed. And these low catalog prices are in effect every day.

Now you know why I'm so attached to consumers. Consumers wrote the book on today's best way to shop and smartest way to save. Yes, consumers may have written the book on the smartest way to save, but it couldn't adapt to the next chapter in retailing. A deep recession put enormous pressure on the chain, which had just invested in costly inventory management software. And with the arrival of Walmart and other big box stores, and the aforementioned out-of-stock refrain, the novelty and perceived efficiency of the consumer's distributing system was wiped out. The doors finally closed in 1996 after writing the book on savings with those tiny pencils for almost 40 years. And we'll be right back.

If you're enjoying this episode, why not dip into our archives? Available wherever you download your pods. Go to terryoreilly.ca for a master episode list. Born into a poor family back in 1876, Edward Francis Hutton grew up in New York City. In his mid-twenties, he drifted from job to job in the financial district. But when he was 27, his fortunes turned. He married the daughter of a wealthy broker, and in 1904, with the backing of his father-in-law, he founded a small brokerage firm called E.F. Hutton & Company. A year later, he opened an office in San Francisco,

making his brokerage company the first to have a presence on both coasts. E.F. Hutton was also the first company to have a private telegraph wire connecting San Francisco to New York. It was an innovation that would prove very lucrative when the devastating San Francisco earthquake of 1906 hit. Their telegraph line was one of the only, if not the only, communication links to the East Coast after the earthquake. Because no other brokerage firm would be aware of the earthquake for several hours, the firm was able to use that period of time

to pile up huge trading profits for itself and its clients. E.F. Hutton grew and prospered for most of the 20th century, becoming the second largest brokerage firm in the nation. The company was a heavy advertiser, and it ran one of my favorite TV campaigns of the 70s and 80s. It was produced by ad agency Benton and Bowles. The entire creative department had been given the task of coming up with a big campaign idea based around the strategy of Hutton says like Simon says. In other words, people do what Hutton says.

A junior copywriter named Jennifer Byrne thought the Simon says notion was too childish, especially for a high-level brokerage firm. But she kept hearing Hutton Says over and over in her head. Then she realized that it sounded like a truncated sentence, one that stopped in the middle. So she started to ponder what might cause a sentence to be stopped short. That's when the idea came to her. The campaign would be centered around the notion that whenever somebody said,

Hutton says, while in a busy public space, everyone else's conversation would stop because the words, Hutton says, were attention-getting. They were the words that made the world stop talking and start listening. It was a big idea, especially coming from a junior writer. When Jennifer Byrne presented the idea, everyone liked it,

but they weren't sure about the tagline. So ironic in hindsight, as it would become one of the most famous of all time. Here's one of those commercials. In this scenario, two men are jogging in a very busy park while having a conversation about investing. I've been thinking about the market lately.

My broker says now's a good time to look into tax-free income. What'd your broker say? Well, my broker's E.F. Hutton, and E.F. Hutton says... At that moment, everyone else in the park stops, leans in, and tries to eavesdrop. When E.F. Hutton talks,

people listen. Another funny commercial opens in a grade two classroom where a teacher asks... All right, children, who's going to be the first one to recite the alphabet? How about you, Anne?

A, B, C, D, E, F, E, F, E, F Hutton. At that moment, all her grade two classmates lean in, including the teacher. It's a very funny moment. When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen. EF Hutton was a giant on Wall Street and a perennial advertiser. The tagline, when EF Hutton talks, people listen, became an instant catchphrase. It has been used by journalists, politicians, entertainers, television shows, and movies. It has been referred to as the E.F. Hutton Law, that when leaders speak, people listen. Recently, a critic used a spin on the line while referring to President Obama.

The markets have shown that he is the anti-E.F. Hutton. When he speaks, no one listens. But disaster befell E.F. Hutton in the mid-80s, when the firm pleaded guilty to over 2,000 counts of mail and wire fraud. The chairman immediately pulled the famous campaign off the air. The scandal brought the firm to the brink of insolvency, and it was eventually bought out and absorbed by a major competitor. Even though E.F. Hutton, once the second largest brokerage firm in America, had vanished, Jennifer Byrne's brilliant campaign line,

When E.F. Hutton Talks, People Listen, Lives On. Live on. new routines, new locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you, whether you need a challenge or rest. And Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton younger brother of E.F. Hutton had married a woman named Edna Woolworth. Her father founded a store that became famous as the first five-and-dime empire. Frank Winfield Woolworth was born in Rodham, New York, in 1852. While attending college, he worked as a stock boy in a general store. There, he noticed that a table of five-cent items always sold out, and that gave him the idea for a five-cent store.

So he borrowed $300, rented space in Utica, New York, and put up a sign that said, Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store, but it failed within a few months. So he took his sign and traveled to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and opened another store there with a different mix of merchandise. This time, it worked. Woolworth's stores had a unique look, with mahogany counters, glass display cases, and highly polished wood floors.

It was also one of the first retailers that encouraged customers to touch the merchandise instead of keeping it behind the counter. In 1910, F.W. Woolworth commissioned the construction of the Woolworth Building in New York City. It was one of the first skyscrapers ever built and was the tallest building in New York until 1930. Woolworth's must have been a thriving company by that time because F.W. paid for the skyscraper with cash. Two years later, F.W. Woolworths had a chain of 596 stores. Even though founder Frank W. would die in 1919, the company continued to grow and expanded into Europe. By the 50s and 60s, it was a fixture in the downtowns of most thriving cities in Canada, the U.S., and England.

In 1979, Woolworth celebrated its 100th anniversary and had become the largest and most widely copied department store chain in the world. If you're over 40 years old today, Woolworth's commercials were part of the soundtrack of your life. Value and selection at Woolworth are a back-to-school tradition. Save now on a 48-function student calculator just $13.99. Save 25% on Timex watches for the whole family. Shop now for back-to-school savings store-wide. It's a Woolworth tradition. But the 1980s were not so kind to Woolworths. Their aggressive expansion caught up with them,

and many competitors nipped at their heels. They had also moved away from their roots and placed more emphasis on their specialty spin-offs, like Woolco. In late 1993, Woolworth's troubles deepened. By October, Woolworth's embarked on a restructuring plan that included closing half of its 800 stores. Things kept getting worse. In a telling sign of the times, Walmart replaced Woolworth's as a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

By 1997, it closed down its remaining stores, moved out of the Woolworth building in New York, and shed the iconic Woolworths brand to take on the name of its top-performing retail subsidiary. And that's what became of one of the greatest apartment stores of all time that was a fixture in many of our lives. Woolworth's became Foot Locker. In many ways, the Woolworth's story paralleled that of Eaton's.

There was no mightier store in Canada. It was almost inconceivable that there might come a time when Eaton's would cease to exist. It was founded in 1869 by an Irish immigrant named Timothy Eaton. From humble beginnings, Eaton's helped Canadians build a country. By 1896, it was billing itself as Canada's greatest store. And it was billing itself as Canada's Greatest Store. And it was.

By 1911, it employed over 17,000 people. For many Canadians, it was the store where they did most of their shopping. And Eaton's television advertising was a welcome guest in the nation's living rooms. In 1937, a sale was held at every Eaton store in Canada. And over the years, it became Eaton's biggest sale of the season. With hundreds of savings for people all across the country. Now the TransCanada sale is 50, so we've added 50 anniversary specials. Happy birthday to us.

This is the TransCanada sale you won't want to miss. But the recession in the 80s, the arrival of big box competitors, and poor management started to chip away at the once invincible Eaton's. By 1997, its share of the department store market had shrunk to 10%, down from the 60% it once enjoyed. In 1999, the unthinkable happened. Arch enemy Sears purchased the struggling chain. In one last gasp, Sears tried to relaunch Eaton's with a big TV campaign. Our company did the music for it, and it was titled Aubergine. Ah, what's the use of kidding ourselves? The party's over.

If only we had more time. Relax, Arch, I've got it. Excuse me? She's got it. Oh, well, in that case, I'm all ears. If blue's been done, and brown's a bore, and pastels, I'm all ears. If blue's been done and brown's a bore and pastels have you wanting more, there's something new you've never seen. The future's painted aubergine.

Auber-what? Aubergine? Aubergine! But not even good advertising can save a company in deep trouble. Eaton's finally closed its doors as a brand in 2002. The one store that had served generations of Canadians for 130 years was gone. The story of vanishing brands is a story of the seemingly impossible happening. Can you imagine,

even for a moment, seeing Walmart or Microsoft or McDonald's vanish? Yet, most of the brands I've mentioned were as mighty in their day. Oldsmobile was the granddaddy of great car marks. But now, that steadfast brand is gone. And to imagine an automotive world without the familiar Pontiac option seems just plain strange.

But companies have a habit of vanishing, and some do it quietly, even after being so loud for so long. There was a time when E.F. Hutton talked, people listened.

Then, it went silent. Most Canadians can remember a time when they filled out a purchase order with funny little pencils and walked home with a new watch. Then, one day, that store quietly disappeared, the victim of changing times. The same can be said of Woolworth's. The store where many of us spent our first allowances is lost to the sands of time. Then there's Eaton's.

It wasn't just a store, it was an institution. But after 130 years, it vanished into thin air. It's an act that would have even confounded Houdini in a world that's under the influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly. Hi, Terry, it's me, Bill. Bill Belanger. Yeah, we went to high school together in Sudbury, back in the 70s. How you doing?

Hey, congrats on the radio show. Man, it's been a long time, huh? 33 years. I just saw your picture on the website. Looks like your hair Houdini'd. Under the Influence was produced by Pirate Toronto and New York. The man who keeps us on the digital rails around here is Tim Whitley. See you next week.

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