Going Bananas

 

A number of readers have told us recently that, much as they love the magazine, they find it a trifle serious. Couldn't we lighten things up a bit? In that spirit, we will use this space in the next three months to run excerpts from a forthcoming book entitled The Misfortune 500, by Bruce Nash and Allan Zullo. Thereafter, we'll be counting on you to supply us with examples of business humor.

Most A-Peeling Sales Pitch of '86:

In 1986, Silo, a discount appliance chain, ran a TV commercial for a stereo it claimed cost only "299 bananas." Sure enough, dozens of customers in Seattle and El Paso took the TV spots literally and brought in 11,000 bananas. Silo honored its pledge, accepted the fruit as payment, and lost $10,465 on the stereos.

Copyright (c) 1988 by Bruce Nash and Allan Zullo. From the forthcoming book, The Misfortune 500, to be published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster. Printed by permission.