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ng 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 gobbledygook and applies as well to one brand as another. As a matter of fact, often two different soap companies, supposedly keen competitors, and using widely different advertising, have their products manufactured in the same plant."
Mr. Coty blinked at him. Shifted in his chair. Rubbed his chin as though checking his morning shave. "Well ... well, then where do you get your soap?"
"The same place. We buy in fantastically large lots from one of the gigantic automated soap plants."
Mr. Coty had him now. "Ah, ha! Then how come you sell it for three cents a cake, instead of twenty-five?"
"I've been telling you. Our soap doesn't even have a name, not to ment