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Company field men helped Pereira Ignacio pick a desirable site and gave him detailed layout suggestions for the kind of bottling plant he would need. If, for instance, he was figuring on a yearly production of 150,000 cases, he would need to allow 720 sq. ft. for the bottling room, 364 sq. ft. for the conference room, 152 sq. ft. for toilets, stairs, etc. The company also advised him and his staff what machines to buy (including water purification apparatus on which Coca-Cola insists) and how to run them. Typical was the matter of Bums, Crocks and Scuffles.
In a 16-page illustrated pamphlet, Pereira Ignacio was told that Bums (bottles so disreputable that they must be discarded), Crocks (bottles chipped on the bottom) and Scuffles (bottles chipped around the trademark) are a hazard to the business and that there are ways of avoiding that hazard through careful tests, proper storage, the use of scuffing inhibitor compounds, etc. Meanwhile, the bottler's advertising department (whose expenses the Coke company shares on a decreasing scale for the first five years) was also getting instruction. Advertising must never be "competitive, offensive, tricky, brash." To be on the safe side, Coke's division headquarters in Rio de Janeiro sent along to Rio Preto sample posters, color films for ads, patterns for metal signs, lengthy instruction on how to build billboards, paste up posters, and mix paste (". . . use three gallons of water to each pound of flour . . . Stir up the flour into a batter with cold water . . .").
At last came the great day of the formal opening: the priest blessed the shiny new machines, the mayor made a short speech. But the education of the bottler and his staff had only just begun. There was, after all, a matter far more intricate than the mere running of machines—the matter of selling what the machine produced.
The Story of Barsoum. Coke's field men in charge of sales promotion speak an idiom of their own; e.g., a Coke sign outside a store is "point of purchase sign," and cleaning a dirty Coke sign means "revitalizing the point of purchase sign." Nothing in the world of sales promotion is said only once: repetition is the key to understanding—and the good promotion man, if he has occasion to use the phrase "key to understanding" at a meeting will hold up a key to underline his point.
Few things are said that can be written down on a blackboard, and few things are written down that can be expressed in a picture. Coke sales promotion men put out a slide film on any subject under Coca-Cola's sun (the way lesser men might toss off a memo). Often, a message is too important even for the screen and live drama is used: any good Coke sales promotion man is ready, like a veteran stock actor, to jump into any number of roles at the drop of a bottle cap.