white child’s forearm, black maternal hand, etc. Then shots of the mothers holding their children’s smiling heads to their aprons as the tagline manifested itself on the screen and wafted through the speakers: Apex Hides the Hurt.
You couldn’t escape the commercials. Pretty soon the tagline became a universal catchphrase in the way that these things happen. People could take it out of the box and apply it to all manner of situations. Why ya drinking so much Larry? Hides the Hurt. What were you doing on the couch with the babysitter, Harry? Just Hiding the Hurt, honey. The subterranean world of novelty T-shirt manufacture took note and soon ribald takes on the slogan appeared on 50-50 cotton-poly, filling the shelves of tourist traps and places surly teenagers might wander. On the late-night talk shows, there was at least one Hides the Hurt punch line per week. Everybody laughed as if it were the first time they had heard it.
But what was a name and an ad hook if it didn’t move the product? The product moved. The boxes didn’t say Sri Lankan, Latino, or Viking. The packages spoke for themselves. The people chose themselves and in that way perhaps he had named a mirror. In pharmacies you started to see
that motion
—folks placing their hands against the box to see if the shade in the little window matched their skin. They gauged and grabbed the box, or moved to the next and repeated the motion until satisfied. And Apex stuck. Once you went black you didn’t go back. Or cinnamon or alabaster for that matter. Stuck literally, too. They finally fixed the glue.
In the advertising, multicultural children skinned knees, revealing the blood beneath, the commonality of wound, they were all brothers now, and multicultural bandages were affixed to red boo-boos. United in polychromatic harmony, in injury, with our individual differences respected, eventually all healed beneath Apex. Apex Hides the Hurt.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” he would ask, as he wrapped up the story of Apex. He meant the bit about the multiculture, skinning knees on some melting pot playground. Hey man, it was this country at its best. They were all stones gathered in a pyramid. And on top—well he didn’t have to draw a map, did he?
He never did meet the guy who came up with the tagline, just like he never met the guy who came up with the idea. They were individual agents in a special enterprise and there were no Christmas parties for people like them. They didn’t get together but they still knew each other. They kept this place running.
. . . . . . . .
Riverboat Charlie’s had neglected so many branding opportunities that he wasn’t sure whether to blame a lack of imagination or to applaud that quality, so rare these days, of understatement. As he waited for the mayor, he rhapsodized over what might have been. Menus and signage employing the colorful argot of wharf rats and gamblers, a decor artificially wizened to simulate exposure to dark and churning water, a mascot-spokesman in the form of a cartoon character or elderly gentleman of stylized appearance. Under his attention, the humble establishment became a vacuum, and all the outside marketing world rushed in to fill every inch and corner, wherever a jubilant little branding molecule might find some elbow room. He was the outside world come inside to bully about.
The waitress led him toward the back, then suddenly altered course halfway into the room, dropping the menus on a table for two by the window overlooking the river. At first he blamed his limp, and the waitress’s desire to minimize her exposure to his infirmity. Then he recognized the make of the table—it was a Footsie, familiar to him from when the name won an Identity Award a few years ago—and he realized she was trying to help the mayor out by hooking her up with a romantic spot.
He took in the evening traffic while he waited. During his walks around town, he’d limited his patrol to the square,
You couldn’t escape the commercials. Pretty soon the tagline became a universal catchphrase in the way that these things happen. People could take it out of the box and apply it to all manner of situations. Why ya drinking so much Larry? Hides the Hurt. What were you doing on the couch with the babysitter, Harry? Just Hiding the Hurt, honey. The subterranean world of novelty T-shirt manufacture took note and soon ribald takes on the slogan appeared on 50-50 cotton-poly, filling the shelves of tourist traps and places surly teenagers might wander. On the late-night talk shows, there was at least one Hides the Hurt punch line per week. Everybody laughed as if it were the first time they had heard it.
But what was a name and an ad hook if it didn’t move the product? The product moved. The boxes didn’t say Sri Lankan, Latino, or Viking. The packages spoke for themselves. The people chose themselves and in that way perhaps he had named a mirror. In pharmacies you started to see
that motion
—folks placing their hands against the box to see if the shade in the little window matched their skin. They gauged and grabbed the box, or moved to the next and repeated the motion until satisfied. And Apex stuck. Once you went black you didn’t go back. Or cinnamon or alabaster for that matter. Stuck literally, too. They finally fixed the glue.
In the advertising, multicultural children skinned knees, revealing the blood beneath, the commonality of wound, they were all brothers now, and multicultural bandages were affixed to red boo-boos. United in polychromatic harmony, in injury, with our individual differences respected, eventually all healed beneath Apex. Apex Hides the Hurt.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” he would ask, as he wrapped up the story of Apex. He meant the bit about the multiculture, skinning knees on some melting pot playground. Hey man, it was this country at its best. They were all stones gathered in a pyramid. And on top—well he didn’t have to draw a map, did he?
He never did meet the guy who came up with the tagline, just like he never met the guy who came up with the idea. They were individual agents in a special enterprise and there were no Christmas parties for people like them. They didn’t get together but they still knew each other. They kept this place running.
. . . . . . . .
Riverboat Charlie’s had neglected so many branding opportunities that he wasn’t sure whether to blame a lack of imagination or to applaud that quality, so rare these days, of understatement. As he waited for the mayor, he rhapsodized over what might have been. Menus and signage employing the colorful argot of wharf rats and gamblers, a decor artificially wizened to simulate exposure to dark and churning water, a mascot-spokesman in the form of a cartoon character or elderly gentleman of stylized appearance. Under his attention, the humble establishment became a vacuum, and all the outside marketing world rushed in to fill every inch and corner, wherever a jubilant little branding molecule might find some elbow room. He was the outside world come inside to bully about.
The waitress led him toward the back, then suddenly altered course halfway into the room, dropping the menus on a table for two by the window overlooking the river. At first he blamed his limp, and the waitress’s desire to minimize her exposure to his infirmity. Then he recognized the make of the table—it was a Footsie, familiar to him from when the name won an Identity Award a few years ago—and he realized she was trying to help the mayor out by hooking her up with a romantic spot.
He took in the evening traffic while he waited. During his walks around town, he’d limited his patrol to the square,
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