A Good Way to Deliver Bad News
At a national meeting for an air conditioning company's top buyers, participants would soon learn that prices were going to increase because of skyrocketing copper costs and a trucker shortage. The venerable company wanted to be straightforward with their buyers about these issues during their annual conference, which began at 7 a.m. To engage the audience - many who had arrived overnight - the conference kicked off with a lively percussion performance played on the very parts that comprised the company's best selling units. And cut to two key news items, delivered in a delightful fifties-style TV spoof on how a Goodman family would help with the copper shortage and a country and Western music video - "There Ain't Enough Truckers Anymore." The audience toe tapped to the country song and many even asked for a copy.
At a national meeting for an air conditioning company's top buyers, participants would soon learn that prices were going to increase because of skyrocketing copper costs and a trucker shortage. The venerable company wanted to be straightforward with their buyers about these issues during their annual conference, which began at 7 a.m. To engage the audience - many who had arrived overnight - the conference kicked off with a lively percussion performance played on the very parts that comprised the company's best selling units. And cut to two key news items, delivered in a delightful fifties-style TV spoof on how a Goodman family would help with the copper shortage and a country and Western music video - "There Ain't Enough Truckers Anymore." The audience toe tapped to the country song and many even asked for a copy.
The air conditioning company's annual meeting, attended by Goodman's top buyers, kicked off with a speech by the CEO - who halted his speech to ask some factory employees to remove parts that had haphazardly been left on the stage. The workers accidentally clanked some of the parts as they carried them away - which drove audience members to snicker at the bumbling employees. Soon, the clanking turned into expert percussion playing as the random parts cleverly became musical instruments. The crowd went wild with applause and were now alert and engaged for a day of meetings.
Local comedians were tapped to create a truckin' song about a logistics problem - a shortage of truckers. The video was screened at the annual meeting to couch disappointing news in a non-intimidating, memorable way.
A film short, "Meet the Goodmans," showed the lengths Goodman employees would go to secure copper - including asking their children to pony up pennies from their piggy banks - in order to keep prices down. The film was a creative way to deliver bad news to buyers - that a copper shortage was driving prices through the roof.
