The Spiked Heel

“That’s hard to say. We try to spread them out. If we’re hitting Vogue and Seventeen this month, we’ll hit Harper’s and Mademoiselle the next month. We’ll spot ads in Glamour, Town and Country, oh, anywhere we think the ad’ll pull. We’re trying to sell shoes, you see.”

“I see.” McQuade thought for a moment. “Have you ever hit all of them in a single month?”

“All of them?” Neggler asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, no, we haven’t. That can run into a lot of dough, Mr. McQuade. We’ve got to consider our budget.”

“Hit all of them with Naked Flesh,” McQuade said, smiling.

“You mean… well, what do you mean by all of them?”

“Every magazine a style-conscious woman will read. And the Sunday supplements of the newspapers that get national distribution. And the snob mags. All of them.”

“That can… that can run into a high five-figure advertising outlay for… well, for a single shoe. And in a single month.”

“That’s right,” McQuade said.

“Maybe even six figures. Frankly, I wouldn’t advise—”

“I’m not here for your advice, Andy,” McQuade said.

Neggler studied McQuade for a moment, wondering how best to put his thoughts into words tactfully and still get his department off the hook. “You see,” he started cautiously, “I couldn’t do this without… well, without clearance.”

McQuade smiled. “You’ve got clearance,” he said.

“I mean, well, you know, Mr. McQuade. I mean from Titanic.”

“I mean from Titanic.”

Neggler waited for McQuade to say more. McQuade was silent. Neggler wet his lips. “What I mean is, we’d… I’d have to tell Titanic just what Advertising was going to do.” He tried a feeble laugh. “After all, I can’t just dump buckets of the company’s money into a single appropriation without authority.”

“That’s right,” McQuade said, smiling.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. McQuade?”

“You’ve got your authority, Andy.”

Neggler nodded, accepting this. “What about… what about the rest of our line?”

“Naked Flesh will carry the rest of the line.”

“It may not, you know. It may—”

“It will,” McQuade said flatly.

Neggler smiled weakly. “Whatever you say, Mr. McQuade.”

“I want you to get up some brochures on Naked Flesh, too.”

“Brochures?”

“For the salesmen. I want that shoe photographed in every conceivable position. I want copy on it that’ll make the retailers drool. And I want the copy to stress the fact that this shoe is getting a tremendous national advertising build-up.”

“These brochures can run into a lot of change, too, Mr. McQuade. Especially if you want them in color. In view of the large advertising expenditure, I don’t think—”

“Do it,” McQuade said. He paused, thinking a moment. “There’s one other thing.”

“What’s that?” Neggler asked apprehensively.

“We’ve been giving a two and a half per cent discount to the retailers, that discount to be used for local advertisement, am I right?”

“Yes. We’ve found that we can absorb that loss by the increased volume of—”

“We’ll boost the discount to five per cent,” McQuade said.

“Fi — that’s a… that’s a big chunk for local advertising.”

“It’s not a big chunk,” McQuade corrected. “Not if we can sell this shoe. I want this shoe to hit women in the eye wherever they look. Do they read the Ladies’ Home Journal? All right, I want an ad there. Do they read the Oshkosh Despatch-Courier? Fine! The local retailer will be advertising in the paper, with cuts supplied by us, with monies supplied by our five per cent discount. If this shoe catches on, we may even take car cards in trains and buses. I’m bucking for a landslide sale, can you understand that? I want everyone to know that Julien Kahn is on its feet, and that Julien Kahn is going to push forward from now on. I want Naked Flesh to be the biggest-selling shoe we’ve ever made. I want Naked Flesh to lure those women into the shops, pull them, seduce them into the shops. I want them to buy that shoe, and I want them to ogle the rest of our line, and the rest of our line will take care of itself! Get started, Andy. They’re a lot of people I’ve got to see yet!”

Dave Stiegman sat opposite McQuade, watching him. He felt uncomfortable in McQuade’s presence. No man had a right to be so big or so handsome. No man had a right to be such a powerhouse. A man like McQuade should have had the antitrust law clamped down on him.

“I want you to get copy out to your salesmen,” McQuade said. “I want you to get copy out to them every day.”

“Every day?”

“From now until our ads break in July. I want them goosed every day, Dave, a different way each day. I want Naked Flesh burned into their minds, do you understand? I want them impressed with the fact that this is going to be a big shoe, a shoe they must push. And in order to do that, I want enthusiasm, genuine enthusiasm!”

“Well, Mac, we can’t generate enthusiasm where there is none, you realize that.”

“But there is enthusiasm for this shoe. You saw that at the Guild Week showings.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Stiegman conceded.