Gordon & Grant Redwood Tubs
Gary Gordon and Richard Grant made luxury hot tubs and they wanted to expand their market. They were feeling competition from a San Luis Obispo company that was marketing hot tubs with a national magazine campaign. Gordon and Grant were dismissive of the quality of the mass-market tubs, but they wanted to increase sales and thought a magazine ad would help.
They didn’t have the budget to run full-page ads in Playboy and Rolling Stone and National Lampoon like the competitor company, which was a sub-unit of the successful Warehouse Sound mail-order stereo operation.
In researching the product I found out that the mail-order hot tubs were tricky to set up. They weren’t something you could assemble on your apartment deck on a Sunday afternoon. The target market would be home owners, first of all, and it would be futile to advertise in magazines aimed at twenty-something stoners.
I had some personal experience with hot tubs.I’d been attending hot tub parties in Santa Barbara for a couple years.The local hot tub guru was publisher Noel Young, who wrote a book about it under the pseudonym “Leon Elder,” and I knew many of the people pictured in the book. So I knew about the luxurious sensuousness of the hot tub and I knew the strength of the mail-order company’s campaign, whose headline was “The Hot Tub Experience” and showed a guy and a hot babe immersed in bliss.
I told Gordon and Grant they should advertise in swimming pool and plumbing trade magazines. Hot tubs were a new phenomenon, and it was our chance to explain everything and show the tradesmen how they could take advantage of the new craze and make money. Thus the ad, “Gordon and Grant Explain Redwood Tubs.”
Thousands of coupons swamped Gordon and Grant. I made map, stuck pins.
The ad offered a four-color brochure, so when the coupons started flowing in we had to create a brochure!
I divided the information into three spreads. The client was not willing to pay for models, so we used some people the client provided, who turned out to be so old and wrinkly that we had to shrink the picture on the cover.
For the center spread, I wanted to show the diversity of sizes and shapes of tubs that Gordon & Grant produced, unlike the rigid sameness of the competition. We set up an array of tubs in the alley and Henry Fechtman shot the picture from the roof. This spread won us a lot of national awards in graphics competitions.
Retail ad
Gordon And Grant Invite You in.
The Natural Warmth Of Wood.
Gordon and Grant invite you to meet the primal world of the hot tub, where soft supple water-blurred redwood and soothing heat massage you into a sensual calm.
The Upright Character Of Vertical Grain
Before the hot tub boom, Gordon and Grant made redwood tanks for the California wine industry. Their experience showed them the importance of vertical grain when your skin is in contact with wood. Flat-cut redwood expands out into the water and peels and splinters while vertical grain compacts itself together. Gordon and grant use only vertical grain redwood, so you never get splintered.
Every Tub Is an Individual
Round, oval, deep, shallow, seats or no seats –each tub is hand-made, whether it’s a standard size or a custom shape. All joints are hand-fitted before the tub leaves the mill, so the staves sit closer and make a tighter, more waterproof seal. And for oval tubs, Gordon and Grant cut a different angle on each stave. That’s the only way to make a true oval.
Gordon and Grant make sense
Expect fifty years of service from a Gordon and Grant tub. They’re built for a long life. Whether you want a tub for quiet relaxation and contemplation, or a tub the whole gang can party in, your Gordon and Grant tub will last and increase in value.
Come in and see and feel for yourself the world’s finest hot tubs.
