TAKE A DEEP BREATH
by Roger Thorne
It has become axiomatic, though none the less true, that advances in the technology of communication can be a double-edged sword: bringing individuals closer together and increasing their understanding of each other; or imposing a kind of mass subservience to the spoken (or written) word, producing a herd man, unthinking, who understands nothing except what he is told.
Sit down . . . make yourself comfortable . . . relax . . . that’s the idea . . . take a deep breath . . . go ahead ... a real deep breath . . . hold it just for a second . . . now . .. very very slowly . . . let it out. .. slowly, mind! . .. There! . . . Feel better, don’t you? . . . Feel relaxed .. . at ease . . . at peace with the world . . . and it’s a wonderful feeling, isn’t it? . . . Feel a little sleepy, maybe? ... Go ahead and yawn, you’re among friends ... a big yawn . . . feels good, doesn’t it? . . . Close your eyes if you feel like it... why not? ... Steal a little cat nap ... nobody will mind . .. just take another deep breath . .. . . . close your eyes . . . let it out slowly . . . and while you do . . . let your mind drift.. . drift on the calm sea ... drift on the clouds ... drift... drift... drift like the subtle scent of Oriental tobaccos ... blended by masters .. . to please your restful hour ... to fulfill your deepest drifting desires . . . drifting . . . drifting . . . drifting desires ... and where ... in what cigarette ... can this fulfillment be found? ... In Navigator . . . Navigator . . . Navigator and no other . . . ask for it alone . . . it and no other . . . Navigator alone and no other . . . Navigator . . .
It began like that: a smooth-voiced announcer speaking gently but authoritatively against a background of soporific music. Next to him, centered on the TV screen, a gyroscope—the Navigator trademark—spinning slowly, evenly.
Restful it was: a pleasant change, a novelty, the first time you encountered a Navigator commercial. Refreshing, after a spate of hysterical barkers, hopped-up jingles, neurotic cartoons, the endless frantic urges to buy, buy, buy.
And the public appreciated the new approach. I know. I wrote a column for a TV magazine at the time, and my mail was full of letters from viewers “in all walks of life,” as they say. Stuff like: “It is certainly a relief to be treated like an adult for once. The Navigator cigarette people ought to be commended . . .” (impeccably typed under a lawyer’s letterhead). Or: “Them adds for Navigator are the best ever out they sure do sound nice & they are not so loud like most...” (hard lead pencil on ruled paper).
I welcomed the letters. They filled a lot of space in my column. I printed some of the most typical, and prefaced them with: “Navigator will be glad to know their relaxed, mesmeric commercials are making a hit with the public. Here’s what a few viewers have to say.” It was an easy column to write—just two sentences—but it elicited an inquiry from the Beaumont Agency, asking if I would be interested in working for them.
When their letter came, I wondered how they happened to have picked me. I did a little research on the telephone and found out that one of their clients was Navigator. That was the connection, obviously, but why? I was familiar enough with my column to know that its style was not likely to seduce lucrative offers from ad agencies.
What could I lose? I made an appointment with Mr. Beaumont himself and saw him the next day.
It was a small agency. Beaumont was in his mid-fifties: short, compact, with vaguely saurian features. His iron gray hair was clipped short and white at the temples and his ears were set flush against his bullet head.
“Hi. I’m Ted Beaumont. Pull up a chair.” That, in a gravel voice, and a quick handshake started the interview. Forty-five minutes later, I was shaking his hand again and he was saying, “See you next month.”
I got the job, at a figure so high I had to stifle an involuntary gasp when he named it. As I rode down to solid earth in the elevator, I realized that I still didn’t know exactly why he had wanted to hire me in the first place.
“We’re a new agency,” Beaumont had told me. “Ideas are welcome here. New ideas, screwy ideas, any ideas. Don’t be afraid to suggest it, no matter how different it may be.” Before the interview, I had caught another Navigator commercial and had written one along the same lines. Beaumont slipped on a pair of black-rimmed glasses and read it. “You’ll do,” he said, with a quick alligator grin.
And so, after giving the TV magazine a resignation notice of decent length, I went to work for Beaumont. I submitted several brilliant ideas, but most of them bounced. Despite Beaumont’s talk about “new ideas,” his policy was as fixed and strict as a Blue Law. Every piece of copy followed the same pattern. “Our formula can be stated in four words,” he told me. “Prestige (we always use one of those Rock of Gibraltar announcers, never the folksy or casual types), attention (the gyroscope, for example), relaxation (our copy encourages the listener to loosen up, even sleep), and—most important—repetition. Listen to this.”
He snapped on a tape recorder and I heard an old commerciaclass="underline" “... In Navigator ... Navigator ... Navigator and no other ...”
Pretty soon I got the hang of it and turned out yards of that formless, free-association stuff. Went for weeks without once typing a period or a comma: just hundreds of sets of those spineless three little dots ...
I handled Navigator exclusively. Wrote all the radio and TV commercials, all the magazine and newspaper ads. The printed stuff Beaumont let go by without much comment: it was the broadcast copy he went over with a fine-toothed comb. We watched Navigator sales anxiously. They were steadily climbing. I felt good about it.
One day, feeling that a writer should be close to his subject, I bought a pack of Navigators and lit one. It was lousy. Tasted like one of those weird off-brands that cropped up during the war years. I went back to my original brand and kept the pack of Navigators strictly for cadgers.
I didn’t think much about it then. After a brief philosophic moment while I pondered the potency of the 20th century adman and flattered myself that a cruddy cigarette was selling great guns only because of my rich beautiful prose, I forgot the incident.
My status grew steadily with the Beaumont Agency. Next to Mr. B. himself, I was the biggest man in the place—because Navigator was our biggest and most important account. Salary hikes came along periodically without my asking: Beaumont seemed determined to keep me happy. One of them was so substantial that I wondered who I was required to do in. “You’re going to write the entire TV show for Navigator,” Beaumont told me abruptly.
My jaw dropped. ‘The whole thing? Gags, continuity, everything for the Hymie Davis show?”
“We’re dropping Hymie Davis. No more comics for Navigator.” He paused and sat back in his chair, fixing me all the time with his eyes. It was a familiar item out of his bag of tricks, something to preamble any announcement of more than usual weight. At one time it had had an effect on me, but I had grown much too accustomed to it, and the suspense had worn thin. As he looked at me, I could think only of a carnivorous lizard peering through jungle foliage with unblinking eyes.