Promotion of southern goods in north urged

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32886, 8 April 1972, Page 6

Promotion of southern goods in north urged

More South Island manufacturers should take space at Auckland’s Easter Show to promote their products, according to Miss Paula Ryan, who spent three weeks at the show recently.

She considers it an excellent method of breaking into the Auckland market. Many Aucklanders, she found, were unaware just what South Island companies produced. Miss Ryan was employed by P.D.L. Industries, Ltd, to staff its stand in the electrical pavilion. It was the first time the company had sent a Christchurch person, rather than employing an Aucklander. “Aucklanders are very parochial,” said Miss Ryan yesterday. “We are made aware of what Aucklanders are producing, but they just ‘turn off’ when it comes to news from the South Island.” Some people who spoke

to her on the stand were not aware that the 1974 Commonwealth Games would be held in Christchurch. "I met some of the Christchurch team who were in Auckland promoting the Games, and they told me Aucklanders said to them: “What are you doing out here from Melbourne'.” Almost the only South Island news Miss Ryan heard in Auckland concerned the weather. Familiarity with southern tempertures may have helped in her selling mission. "In Auckland people are slightly conscious of very cold weather, but those who want heating in their homes considered a Christchurch firm must know what it was doing,” she said. Business was brisk. About 400,000 visited the show, and Miss Ryan believes at least 5000 of these stopped at the stand. She was surprised to find many interested in home heating. "I was giving instant quotes for central heating,” she said. Much interest was expressed in heat storage, a concept that appealed to North Islanders who paid, in some areas, higher rates for electricity than in the south. The appearance of the stand, and undoubtedly her own—the pavilion was carpeted in orange, the stand decorated to match, and Miss Ryan wore complementary clothes (long dress in the evenings)—. attracted attention. But 1 Miss Ryan was not along as ’ a decoration. "I was employed to help people with their inquiries. After all, there's nothing worse than' a dumb blonde.” A graphic designer. Miss! Ryan has her own studio, and does some public relations work. For this job she ' spent three days visiting the factory to learn about the 1 company's products, and! found out electricity costs in ’ various areas so that she ’ could speak knowledgeably .

with visitors to the stand. She had her entertaining moments, and some apprehensive times. One of the more novel inquiries came from an elderly woman who wanted to buy a rail heater—normally used for drying towels in bathrooms—to keep her dog warm.

Friday and Saturday evenings heralded the arrival of groups of “bikies.” “They

would storm on to the stand and I’d think, ‘Heavens, fasten everything down.’ And I had visions of them taking me off with them when they left. “But I found they became very polite if I just chatted naturally to them. If you talk down you get what’s coming to you,” she said. One of the boys invited her out for a ride on the back of his bike down Queen

Street. She inquiried if being a bikie was a satisfying life, and he replied that it was “fun, playing with the law.” “He was a mechanic, and because I’m a designer I’m interested in cars and bikes, and I know a bit about the mechanical side because I drive my own car. We had quite a chat and when others came on to the stand I just asked to be excused and he wandered off.”