1960s WORK
0111 Gallahers – Training
When I was fired by PST, one of the choices eventually on offer to me was as a brand manager at Gallahers. In the event I chose to go to Weston Biscuits, since this was a marketing manager job which I thought would be better for my career. However when, three months later, I realised the future in this was limited, I approached Gallahers again. Fortunately, the brand manager's job there was still open -- and they still very much wanted me. This turned out to be just about the best job I ever had. Certainly it was the most enjoyable one.
That may sound silly, since people now look askance at you if are working in the tobacco industry; but in those days it was one of the old established, and highly respected, industries. We were only just starting to get a backlash from lung cancer.
Gallahers was the second largest tobacco manufacturer in United Kingdom. The largest was Imperial Tobacco, and the third was Rothmanns -- the South African corporation's UK offshoot. Gallahers covered the whole range of tobacco products. Obviously it had a wide range of cigarettes, but it also had cigars and pipe tobaccos. Pipe tobacco was the area where I was due to work.
First of all, a little background about the cigarette market; since that dominated all the tobacco manufacturers' sales. Sometime previously Gallahers Senior Service had been the biggest brand on the market, but when filters were applied to cigarettes in general the brand pattern changed -- as it also did over subsequent years, as market requirements changed.
At the time I went to Gallahers the leading brand was Imperial Tobacco’s ‘Embassy’. Paradoxically, I had seen the launch of this -- from a distance -- when I was in the advertising agency. At that time Gallahers had just bought up a very small manufacturer called Wix. This was unique in that its cigarettes were different to other cigarette brands; in as much as they gave coupons which could be exchanged for gifts. I later learned the Gallahers didn't take this brand seriously and really only bought it for the roll-your-own tobacco side, but Imperial Tobacco didn't realise this that the time. So, as a spoiling campaign, they launched their own Embassy brand with gift certificates. At first they put little effort into this, but then - as it became increasingly successful - they promoted it heavily and it swept the board. Anyway, at the time I joined Gallahers the cigarette market was dominated by coupon brands -- and even Gallahers had a massive warehouse near Heathrow which was full of gifts they we shipping!
Also at that time the main Gallahers’ brand was Benson & Hedges, a quite upmarket brand. This later came to be the brand leader, when the rules for paying duty on the tobacco changed -- and duty became based on the purchase price. It changed even further later on when cancer scares persuaded people to take low tar cigarettes, where the tar level was determined by the filter, and Benson & Hedges Silk Cut became the brand of choice.
As I said, I went into the pipe tobacco marketing group. At that time this consisted of Roland Bligh, who was the marketing manager, and Brian Harri, who was to become my brand assistant. Roland was a lovely guy, one of the best managers I ever worked for. Brian also was a nice guy, but was less interested in marketing -- and eventually went off to work as a salesman elsewhere. The brands we had included Old Holborn, in the roll-your-own sector, which was the biggest brand of the group. On the pipe tobacco side, which became my main interest, the leading brand was Condor -- a downmarket, strong-smoking pipe tobacco. We also had a range of other luxury tobaccos including John Cotton, which was a mixture, and Escudo, a Navy Cut.
The first thing Roland did was to set out a training programme which, give him his due, was an excellent one. As part of this I went out with the sales force selling to tobacconists, which reminded me of my work in PST.
The main difference in the sales operation was that the sales people were provided with a computer printout of all brands each CTN (Confectioner, Tobacconist, Newsagent – the small retailers who dominated sales of cigarettes in those days) stocked, together with the sales he had made. This was leading edge, where computers were then a rarity, but in this way the salesman had a good idea what was needed -- and was able to give expert advice to the shopkeeper. This was only complicated by cigars, which had to be sold in for Christmas, where the sales the previous year were what mattered not the sales the month before. All this was handled by the Honeywell computer complex at the warehouse near Heathrow.
I also went out with their merchandisers, again very much the same as those in
PST - except that the hats they had only recently stopped wearing had been
bowlers!
Roland really went to town on my training, and I remember especially well my visit to the Northeast, to go out with the salesmen there. While there Roland also arranged for me to go down a pit, since our roll tobacco included chewing tobacco -- mainly sold to miners. The problem down a pit is that the dust is so prevalent that chewing gum, used to keep your mouth moist, was tasteless. Nothing can be tasted above the coal dust -- but chewing tobacco remained tasty! I later tried out chewing tobacco, but only once. I chewed it and found it was tasteless, and then - in terms of the vernacular - the juice came out. My mouth and throat were literally paralysed. I rushed around the office desperately trying to find a spitoon, a wastepaper basket, but my throat was so paralysed that I couldn't speak for the next three hours.
Going down the mine was quite an experience. The mine was on the coast and, having descended several hundred of feet, we walked over seven miles - out under the sea - eventually stooping lower and lower as the roof of the main drive sank under the weight of the earth. When we got to the seams themselves they were only 18 inches high. Then we had to crawl on our hands and knees to the coalface itself. While lying there, watching the miners working in seams just 18 inches high, and having to shovel 12 tonnes of coal every shift even though they had mechanical cutters, you could hear the roof falling down behind you. As the props were moved forward the roof was allowed to fall to fill the gap. It was an eerie sensation -- especially when the guide told us about the time, few weeks before, when he had been trapped for a number of hours by a rockfall!
hits