Dropping a Name for Marketers of Generic Viagra

One week after Carl Hughes had talked with a summer intern, that intern knocked on Carl’s office door. At first Carl did not remember the task he had assigned to that intern. Then he recalled his request for some specific information.
“Come in,” said Carl. “I hope you dug up a few useful facts about that Hanoud.”
“Well sir,” said the intern, showing a decided hesitancy, “I found that she is not a human female, but she is also not a robot.”

“So what is she?” asked Carl. “Is she some sort of space alien? Is she a transsexual?”
“No,” replied the intern. “She is a camel.”
“A camel?!” declared a dumbfounded Carl.
“Yes,” said the intern. “It seems that a company that makes robots was asked to design robot ‘camel jockeys.’ The camel racers in Quatar planned to have robots replace the child jockeys.”

“So this Hanoud, was she a child jockey?”
“No,” explained the intern. “Hanoud was the name of the camel that they used to test the robots.”
“I see,” said Carl. Carl was about to dismiss the intern when he suddenly had an idea. “Please come to this office at this time tomorrow,” he said.
“I will be here,” promised the intern.

The next afternoon the intern knocked again on Carl’s door. Carl was ready for him. He presented the intern with a company shirt, one that said clearly “Generic Cialis.”
“I want you to wear this shirt this afternoon, and to walk past the offices for Generic Viagra. Be sure to drop this note on the grass outside of that office building.”
Carl gave the intern the shirt and a small note. On that note he had written the name “Hanoud.”
“I see now that we can not use that name Hanoud in any marketing campaign. I want to trick the men that market Generic Viagra into searching for information on that name.”

“I see,” said the intern. “You figure that while they look for information on that name, we can get busy coming up with a new way to market Generic Cialis.”
“That’s it,” said Carl. “I am hoping to find someone who can serve as a spokesman for Generic Cialis.”
Carl did not mention to the intern the name of the racer who he hoped to contact. Carl was not sure if this intern had read the magazine that Carl had come upon. It had been an old issue of Boy’s Life. That magazine had contained an article about Reuel Erickson.

Although that magazine had come out almost 10 years earlier, Carl thought that Erickson might still be a good spokesperson for his company. Young boys who might have read that article 10 years ago might now be thinking about using some ED pills.
Carl had just had this idea. He wanted to be sure that none of his competitors saw the same magazine, and came up with the same idea. He had therefore asked his intern to feed the marketers of Viagra some false information.