About twenty years ago, I had a temp job as secretary to an executive at American Express. His job was to find and contract for all those speical offers that come tucked into your AmEx bills. (“Join our Wine Club!” “Jewelry Perfection for Cardholders!” etcetera).
Years before I ever went to work for AmEx Exec, he had contracted witha company which promised to find and import really cool furs from Europe. And indeed they had found some really beautiful fur coats. However, while looking over samples, AmEx Exec ntoed that one of them was a beautiful, close-cut, silky golden fur from a German source.
“Hey, what is this stuff?” asked AmEx Exec.
Translation ensued. Yup, it was hamster fur.
“We can’t sell that in America!” he responded. Alas, they’d already contracted to buy a boatload of lovely hamster coats. Solution: “Let’s call it by its German Name: Amster.” Next set of statement stuffers featured a lovely collection of fur coats you could buy through AmEx, including a long and short amster coat.
Like this fooled anybody.
Thousands of outraged parents and their ten-year-old daughters wrote in for weeks and weeks: “How could you kill Mr. Fluffy to make a COAT, you sick, evil people? Cancel my card!”
At the time I worked for him, over five years later, we still got one to two letters a week in this vein, even though the product had been withdrawn, deep-sixed, destroyed, and everyone connected with the decision had claimed it was Some Otherguy who’d decided to do it.
But now, I learn that Scylla (mild-mannered, softspoken, the neighbors all said was “real quiet, you know?”)–apparently Scylla is planning to sell Amster Coats. Again.
Wait’ll the letters start coming…