Day 193 - The Power of Advertising

John, Patty, and Paul

One of my colleagues at NIRT in Tehran, Paul, brought his partner, John, with him. John had been in advertising in Los Angeles. He never stopped thinking like a marketer while in Iran.

For example, we all noticed that the Kleenex-equivalent (what is the generic term for Kleenex? It isn't tissue paper.) didn't come out of the box just one tissue at a time. Pulling out the top tissue usually brought four or five more at the same time. So John envisioned a commercial with two people sitting at a counter, facing the camera, with a box of tissues in front of each, one a box of Kleenex brand tissues and the other a box of the Iranian version. Both people were about to sneeze, taking a few seconds to wind up the facial expressions, followed by simultaneous grabs for a tissue. The person grabbing from the Kleenex box would get one tissue while the other would pull out a string of tissues. No words required to convey the message: Kleenex tissues are better.

I think of this every time I grab a tissue these days. And while we were still purchasing Kleenex brand, the memory of John's commercial idea reminded of the decline in quality as more and more often I found myself with four or five tissues in my hand, that is, if I didn't have to break the connection to the box itself. If the U.S. still had any commercial relationship with Iran, I would suspect that the product was being manufactured there. But the box still says Kleenex tissues and boxes are manufactured in the U.S. from foreign and domestic recycled paper for Kimberly Clark LLC of Neenah, WI. Maybe it's the foreign recycled paper that has contributed to the decline in quality.

Large Kleenex box with sides folded to
half its height.

Large Kleenex box before sides are folded.

We used to buy the big boxes which work better when they are full than when they are oniy half full. I even figured out a way to fold the long sides of the boxes in half and then the bottom half again - the beginning of a Fibonacci sequence - so I could fold the box to half its height, bringing the tissues at the bottom close enough to the top to be able to pull them out. But they still don't come out just one at a time.

We recently switched to Puffs brand because the box design is different. Puffs boxes don't pretend they will deliver just one tissue at a time. They offer a big enough opening to allow reaching in to pick out the top one is possible.

But soft paper tissue boxes are just one illustration of John's marketing thinking. John didn't just think about possible commercials, he knew how to build suspense before revealing his message. For the next example, I need to remind you all of some of the things I loved about Iran snce it has been so long since I wrote anything about it.

One of the things I loved about Iran was the food. Rice and bread are staples of the Iranian diet. When the rice was prepared without anything mixed in it, with a sauce poured over it, it is called chelow. When the rice is prepared with meat or vegetables or fruit in it, it is called polow, the Farsi equivalent of a more familiar word, pilaf.

There were three types of bread in Iran: lavash, barbari, and sangak. In the most typical of Iranian restaurants, chelow kebabis, the rice and lamb kabobs are most often served with broiled tomatoes and lavash bread that can be used to wrap around the rice and meat to eat it.

The guideline for preparing an Iranian meal called for one uncooked cup of rice per person. And since Iranian rice cooks up to three to four times its uncooked volume, that means each portion was a lot of rice. It is like being served a caserole for a family of four. Iranian students in the U.S. couldn't believe how little rice they were served in Chinese restaurants just as we Americans couldn't get over how much rice we were served in Iran.

John was a very particular eater. He had limited dietary preferences, so when he told us that he had discovered an Iranian delicacy that he loved and that he was learning how to make, we were delighted. He volunteered to bring it to a dinner at Neal and Shirley's house. When he and Paul arrived, John rushed in with a tray covered with aluminum foil, explaining that the dish had to be kept in the refrigerator until just before serving it. Neal made room in the refrigerator for the tray and then John and Neal joined the others in the living room.

When it was time to sit at the table for the meal, John brought the tray to the table and removed the foil, revealing colorful cubes on bamboo skewers. He had brought jello kebabs.