Now I Know (17 page)

The plan was to make the dry run “invasion” as realistic as possible, so gunships were to shell the test beach starting at 6:30
A.M
. on April 27 for thirty minutes. At 7:30
A.M
., landing ships would drop off the soldiers and tanks. At that point, the artillery would fire live ammunition well over the heads of the troops landing, much as they would be doing during an actual invasion. However, some of the landing ships were delayed, which in turn delayed the artillery fire. The battle cruiser received the orders to wait until 7:30, but some of the landing parties were not similarly instructed to wait until 8:30 to disembark. Some Marines lost their lives as they raided the beach at 7:30, just as the cruiser opened fire.

Then it got worse. The next day, nine German E-boats happened upon Lyme Bay. British sentries detected these enemy fast-assault ships but opted to let them through rather than give away the location and size of Allied fortifications in the area. Instead, the British commanders radioed ahead to the HMS
Azalea
, a warship escorting a convoy of nine American LSTs (landing ships carrying tanks) through the bay. The American and British forces, however, were using different radio frequencies. The HMS
Azalea
believed that the LSTs knew about the E-boats, but they didn’t. The LSTs’ lone escort was insufficient to repel the attack and the LSTs were, colloquially, sitting ducks. Two of the nine LSTs were sunk and another two were damaged before the other LSTs could effectively return fire and force the E-boats to retreat. Many soldiers jumped into the water but put on their life jackets incorrectly; as a result the jackets worked more like anchors than floatation devices. All told, nearly 1,000 men died. Decades later, Steve Sadlon, a radio operator from the first LST attacked, described the carnage to MSNBC. He jumped off his ship, aflame, into the English Channel. He spent four hours in the cold water until he was rescued, unconscious from hypothermia. His memories of the day are harrowing:

From a macro perspective, the E-boat attack caused a massive strategic problem. The actual D-Day invasion was supposed to be a surprise. Now the military had to figure out how to keep the deaths of nearly 1,000 soldiers under wraps. This was done via threat of court martial. Subordinate soldiers were informed that families were being told that the dead were simply missing in action, and any discussion of the tragic two days was patently disallowed.

But even this was not enough. Ten of the men who went missing due to the E-boat attacks knew details of the D-Day invasion plans. Initially, Eisenhower and the rest of Allied leadership decided to delay the actual invasion, fearing that if any of those ten men were captured by the Germans, the enemy could obtain intel about the otherwise secret plan. Not until their bodies were discovered did the D-Day plan go back into action—with improved life jacket training and a single radio frequency for both American and British forces.

For decades after Exercise Tiger, the story went mostly untold. Before D-Day it was a secret; after D-Day it was old news. But in 1984, a resident of the Slapton Beach area managed to raise a sunken tank from Lyme Bay and turn it into a war memorial, with a plaque describing the tragedy.

On February 19, 1942, the Nazis invaded Winnipeg, the capital and largest city of the Canadian province of Manitoba. Thirty-five hundred troops entered the city starting at 5:30
A.M
., just hours after a one-hour blackout as fighter planes flew over the city in an apparent bombing run. More bombers followed at around 7
A.M
., and by 9:30 that morning the few Canadian troops in the area surrendered. The province’s premier, the mayor of Winnipeg, and other officials were sent to an internment camp about seventeen miles north-northeast of the city. The leader of the invaders, a man named Erich von Neurenberg, took control of the province. He issued a decree turning Manitoba into a
de facto
police state.

According to von Neurenberg’s decree, Manitoba was now part of Nazi Germany—the “Greater Reich,” as the document stated—and everyone was subject to the whims of the Germans. A strict curfew was established; Manitobans were not allowed out from 9:30
P.M
. until daybreak the next day, and public places were shuttered to citizens altogether. Gatherings of more than eight people were barred, even in private; households were required to provide lodging for up to five German soldiers. Many private organizations were disbanded and the Boy Scouts were made a sub-organization of the Nazis. Farmers were required to sell everything—even things they’d consume themselves—through a central authority. All cars, trucks, and buses were to be forfeited to the “Army of the Occupation.” Any attempts to leave or enter Manitoba, organize resistance to the occupiers, or hide any goods from the Nazis (or possess a weapon, hidden or otherwise) was punishable by death, without trial.

And then, at 5:30
P.M.
that same day, the occupation ended. It was fake.

In order to fund Canada’s part of the war, the country did what many nations opted to do and issued war bonds. The war bonds were, effectively, loans to the government that would allow for additional spending in the war effort. Manitoba was expected to raise $45 million (Canadian) in the effort; Winnipeg itself was responsible for more than half of that. To encourage the purchase of “Victory Bonds,” as they were called, a group called the Greater Winnipeg Victory Loan Organization devised a plan. They broke the city up into forty-five districts and initiated the fake invasion. Citizens of Winnipeg and those of neighboring towns were alerted to the ruse a few days beforehand—scaring people to death was not the goal here—and how to escape the rule of the faux Nazis. When your district raised a preset target amount for the Victory Bonds effort, you and your neighbors went free.

Although the “occupation” was only going to last a day, the Victory Loan Organization pulled few punches. Churches were barred from holding services. Armed soldiers searched buses. One of the principals of a local elementary was “arrested” and replaced by a Nazi propagandist. There was even a book burning in front of the city library. (The books used were scheduled to be destroyed anyway; they had fallen into disrepair.)

The event, called “If Day” in the press, was a fundraising success. The Victory Bonds effort raised C$3.2 million from Winnipeg that day alone—in today’s dollars, that’s about $40 million (U.S. dollars) from a city of about 250,000 at the time. Manitoba as a whole raised C$60 million—33 percent more than its target amount—during the fundraising month. However, If Day failed in another capacity: recruitment. Roughly three dozen men signed up daily to join the war effort during the weeks before If Day, but only about twenty to twenty-five signed up on If Day itself.

Shreddies is a brand of breakfast cereal common in the UK and Canada. The cereal is comprised of squares, similar in size and design to Chex in America, and is made from whole wheat. Shreddies come in a variety of flavors, but nothing terribly out of the ordinary as far as cereal is concerned. It is a reliable yet milquetoast breakfast option and has been since 1939.

Which creates a problem for those who are charged with growing sales for the product. How do you make a half-century-old, tried-and-true product seem new or different?

For years, Shreddies’ ad men had achieved limited success advertising a bland product. For years, they successfully positioned the brand using the tagline “Keeps Hunger Locked Up Until Lunch,” a straightforward appeal to everyday hunger. In 2007, they launched a TV ad campaign featuring a factory of grandmothers—who better to show the wholesome goodness promised by a generations-old product?—knitting lattices of whole wheat together. Like many other cereals, at times, the boxes had toys inside (often
Tom and Jerry
stickers). Through these the manufacturers hoped to give parents an added reason for purchasing the cereal (or, for the cynics, reasons for the children to ask for it).

All fine, but nothing really interesting. Until 2009, when an intern at Post Foods Canada suggested that the brand shake things up. Or, more accurately, spin things a bit. The marketing campaign? A whole new product—Diamond Shreddies—created by an accident at their factories.

The product, of course, was exactly the same—a diamond is just a square, rotated bit. But the public wasn’t sure. Post approached the product launch the way one would expect a launch for a “new and improved” product: with a multimedia ad campaign trumpeting the difference. Square Shreddies were “Old (Boring)” whereas the Diamond ones were “New (Exciting!).” TV commercials showed prank market research panels, with members trumpeting the much more tasty diamond ones. Regular square Shreddies were pulled from the shelves in favor of new boxes of Diamond Shreddies; “researchers” asked purchasers to vote for their preferred shape-slash-product at a now-defunct website
DiamondOrSquare.com
. Some people, playing along, preferred the old square product. So as a final coup de grace, Post responded to the traditionalists in the crowd and released a Diamond Shreddies “Combo Pack”—both square and Diamond Shreddies combined (mixed?) in the same box.

The tongue-in-cheek ad campaign worked. As
MacLeans
reported, the promotion resulted in a measurable and significant increase in sales.

Lemonade is a summer staple in the United States and elsewhere, and few would object to calling it the unofficial drink of the season. It comes in many varieties and combinations and for many schoolchildren, provides temporary summer employment. The nickel or quarter a glass lemonade stand, one could fairly assert, is the first business experience of generations of marketing and advertising professionals.

But in one case, the professionals came before the lemonade.

Limonana is a type of lemonade common in the Middle East. It’s made of lemon juice mixed with ground mint leaves and sweeteners added to taste. The combination, which is typically made fresh, made its way into the public eye in the 1990s, when an advertising agency in Israel crafted a campaign depicting local celebrities drinking the green lemonade. The ads, which were displayed exclusively on public buses, worked. Thirsty Israelis went to their vendors of choice, asking for their first taste of limonana.

For the storekeepers, this request proved difficult. Limonana, it turned out, didn’t exist. The ad agency had made it up.

Public buses have been a staple method of transportation in Israel for most of its history, but skepticism about using them to advertise products was very high. Unconvinced advertisers were, understandably, slow to pony up their money for the ad space, likely frustrating the agencies that believed in the value on the outside of, and inside of, buses. One agency, named Fogel Levin, took matters into its own hands, buying ad space in the hope of proving that it had value.

Then, the agency invented the product. It concocted the fake limonana product (or, at least, gave it a name; the mixture probably was a folk recipe) and promoted it, inking an endorsement with a soccer player named Eli Ohana (“Ohana drinks Limonana”), a man widely regarded to be one of the best Israelis in the game. Other endorsements for the fictional product followed, and in two weeks’ time, Israelis were hooked, insisting that they be allowed to drink it, too.

Vendors agreed. The name “limonana” is descriptive—“limon” is the Hebrew and Arabic word for “lemon,” and “nana” is the word for “mint” in both languages. The most common recipe is exactly what one would expect given the lack of instruction: a straightforward mint-flavored lemonade. (Why would-be purchasers did not simply make the stuff at home is anyone’s guess.) And with that, a product was born.

Limonana is now found throughout Israel and its neighboring countries—and, in a few cafes in the United States and Canada as well. And bus advertising in Israel has become commonplace.