Doubledealinginthe doubleglazingtrade

August 1985

When Wexford firm, National Aluminium, decided to carry out a drop-card promotion around the town last week-end, they clearly brought out the worst in a rival company from outside the county.

No sooner had households in the ‘drop zone’ been issued with leaflets singing the praises of National Aluminium than a strange man began appearing and asking for them to be returned.

The rival company representative knocked on doors and asked people if they had received National Aluminium hand-outs. If they had, he took them and replaced them with hand-outs from his own firm, adding words to the effect that their products were better.

One puzzled recipient contacted this newspaper on Monday to relate the strange story. He hardly knew what had happened, he said, until he found himself reading the second leaflet.

His young daughter had answered the door and said there was a man looking for a National Aluminium leaflet.

‘I thought it was somebody who wanted a loan of one, but then the young one came back after with a different leaflet,’ he said.

Michael Murray, who is charge of National Aluminium’s marketing promotions, was amazed when he heard the story of the ‘phantom rep’.

The company, which had obviously had its promotional feathers ruffled by National Aluminium’s more timely advertising tactics, was an English-owned firm, Michal explained.

He was confident, therefore, that conscientious customers in Wexford and indeed throughout Ireland would stand behind the Irish-owned National Aluminium and disregard the ‘ low’ tactics of the phantom rep.

‘It just goes to show how low some people will stoop,’ he said.