of
twenty-five." Dickens opened the paper bag and fished out an ordinary
enough looking cake of soap and handed it to the older man.

Mr. Coty took it, stared down at it, turned it over in his hands. He was
still blank. "Well, what's different about it?"

[Illustration]

"There's nothing different about it. It's the same as any other soap."

"I mean, how come you sell it for three cents a cake, and what's the
fact it has no name got to do with it?"

Warren Dickens leaned forward and went into what was obviously a
strictly routine pitch. "Mr. Coty, have you ever considered what you're
buying when they nick you twenty-five cents on your credit card for a
bar of soap in an ultra-market?"

There was an edge of impatience in the older man's voice. "I buy soap!"

"No, sir. That's your mistake. What you buy is a telly show, in fact
several of them, with all their expensive comedians, singers, musicians,
dancers, news commentators, network vice presidents, and all the rest.
Then you buy fancy packaging. You'll note, by the way, that our product
hasn't even a piece of tissue paper wrapped around it. Fancy packaging
designed by some of the most competent commercial artists and
motivational research men in the country. Then you buy distribution.
From the factory all the way to the retail ultra-market where your wife
shops. And every time that bar of soap goes from one wholesaler or
distributor to another, the price roughly doubles. You also buy a brain
trust whose full time project is to keep you using their soap and not
letting their competitors talk you into switching brands. The brain
trust, of course, also works on luring away the competitor's customers
to their product. Shucks, Mr. Coty, practically none of that twenty-five
cents you spend to buy a cake of soap goes for soap. So small a
percentage that you might as well forget about it."

Mr. Coty was obviously taken aback. "Well, how do I know this nameless
soap you're peddling is, well, any good?"

Warren Dickens sighed deeply, and in such wise that it was obvious that
he had so sighed before. "Sir, there is no difference between soaps. Oh,
they might use a slightly different perfume, or tint it a slightly
different color, but for all practical purposes common hand soap, common
bath soap, is soap, period. All the stuff the copy writers dream up
about secret ingredients and health for your skin, and cosmetic
qualities, and all the rest, is Madison Avenue gobbledygo