I unknowningly participated in simplistic business research when I was a kid growning up at the City Club. I didn't realize the magnitude of the research at the time, but in hindsight it taught me valuable lessons.
My Grandma Myrna had invited "Big John" from Sheboygan Restaurant Supply to stop at the City Club to discuss "shot glasses". She bought most of her restaurant supplies from Big John. I think I was about 12 years old at the time and I was invited to this serious meeting. The objective was to find a new "shot glass" for the bar. You know, the old "shot and a beer" routine. The new "glass" must hold less booze but look like it was actually more. Huh?
Big John brought along 10-15 different shot glasses for review. The City Club had a habit of filling shot glasses to the very top to make the customer feel that he got his moneys worth. Acceptable practice is to deliver a minimum of 1 ounce of liquor. Myrna wanted to find a glass that (1) delivered at least an ounce of booze, (2) looked like there was a lot of booze in the glass, and (3) actually delivered less liquor than the present glass. She was looking for the perfect shot.
There is big money in shots of booze. You get about 30 shots from a bottle of brandy and you can do the math. If you get $1.00 per shot (I actually don't know current rates), a bottle of brandy can produce $30 in revenue. If a bottle of brandy costs $10, the profit would be $20. Pretty good profit margin. Now imagine if you could get 35-40 shots from that same $10 bottle of Brandy. Hey, we were talking major profit improvement.
We lined up all the potential new shot glasses on the bar and carefully filled each with one ounce of Brandy. The one that filled closest to the top of the glass and looked like it contained the most booze would be the winner. I never realized how many deceptive ways you can design glass bubbles into the bottom of a glass to make it look full. There was one glass that did it all. It looked full and it wasn't. It reduced the amount of booze in each shot but because it looked very full, the customer would feel good. Myrna would improve her profit on a bottle of Brandy by 10%-20%. Big John got a order for a gross of new shot glasses. Everybody wins.
In reality everybody didn't win. The customer was being deceived into believing he was getting a whopping shot glass of booze and he was actually getting less. What the hell! He was happy and didn't know the difference.
Why recount this early business research? Well I went to buy a tube of "Obsession After Shave" at Marshall Fields. I got the Obsession shave balm for $35. They give you a travel kit along with a small sample of Obsession. You walk home with the big bag of stuff which makes you feel like you got your money's worth. They always give the kit so it was the same last time I bought it. When I got home I placed the tube of new after shave next to the old one. I noticed the new quantity of after shave was 5 flluid ounces. The old tube was 6.7 fluid ounces. I checked my last purchase and found I paid the same price. So let me see, I got 1.7 less ounces of after shave in a flashy presentation for the same price. Most people wouldn't think about it but I just got screwed out of 1.7 ounces, a 25% price increase. Damn! I may just go back to English Leather.
So my lesson Grasshoppers is that most things in life are not as they seem. Isn't that a revelation. Stay alert. Spend you money wisely. Don't let the world switch your shot glasses.
Love,
Dad