same store where we were both buying our sons an expensive post-
Christmas gift—that time a robot that walked, talked, and laid waste.
We laughed about our strange pattern of seeing each other only once
a year at the same time, in the same place, while doing the same thing.
Later that day, I mentioned the coincidence to a friend who, it turned
out, had once worked in the toy business.
“No coincidence,” he said knowingly.
“What do you mean, ‘No coincidence’?”
“Look,” he said, “let me ask you a couple of questions about the road-
race set you bought this year. First, did you promise your son that he’d
get one for Christmas?”
“Well, yes, I did. Christopher had seen a bunch of ads for them on
the Saturday morning cartoon shows and said that was what he wanted
for Christmas. I saw a couple of the ads myself and it looked like fun,
so I said okay.”
“Strike one,” he announced. “Now for my second question. When
you went to buy one, did you find all the stores sold out?”
“That’s right, I did! The stores said they’d ordered some but didn’t
know when they’d get any more in. So I had to buy Christopher some
other toys to make up for the road-race set. But how did you know?”
“Strike two,” he said. “Just let me ask one more question. Didn’t this
same sort of thing happen the year before with the robot toy?”
“Wait a minute...you’re right. That’s just what happened. This is in-
credible. How did you know?”
“No psychic powers; I just happen to know how several of the big
toy companies jack up their January and February sales. They start
prior to Christmas with attractive TV ads for certain special toys. The
kids, naturally, want what they see and extract Christmas promises for
these items from their parents. Now here’s where the genius of the
companies’ plan comes in: They undersupply the stores with the toys
they’ve gotten the parents to promise. Most parents find those things
sold out and are forced to substitute other toys of equal value. The toy
manufacturers, of course, make a point of supplying the stores with
plenty of these substitutes. Then, after Christmas, the companies start
running the ads again for the other, special toys. That juices up the kids
to want those toys more than ever. They go running to their parents
whining, ‘You promised, you promised,’ and the adults go trudging
off to the store to live up dutifully to their words.”
“Where,” I said, beginning to seethe now, “they meet other parents
they haven’t seen for a year, falling for the same trick, right?”
“Right. Uh, where are you going?”
“I’m going to take that road-race set right back to the store.” I was
so angry I was nearly shouting.
50 / Influence