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•Ten Greatest Ideas that Do Not Fit a Pattern 159

paperbacks need not look like cheap editions after all. This breakthrough was credited
to Joe Pacey of Panther Books in the 1950s. It broke Penguin’s stranglehold on the
word paperback and signalled the final curtain for the popular hardback.

Idea 95 – Bring to market something newsworthy

Perhaps the greatest amount of unpaid-for advertising ever is that gained by the
drug Viagra. This is a cure for male and, would you believe, possibly female,
impotence. There is no doubt that it meets a growing need and that men who hitherto
did not bother their doctor with an embarrassing problem are flocking to pick up
prescriptions.

For a while no day went by without the drug being mentioned in the quality as
well as red-top press. Not many products have received this much Parliamentary
time, nor inspired so many interviews and discussions. MPs even discussed the
threat of people using Viagra as a recreational drug. Probably no-one had thought of
that before. Pharmaceuticals have spawned many great business ideas and free
advertising, but I think Viagra will be the one that something gets erected for.

Idea 96 – Make it so that customers can always be on
the phone

There is a new phenomenon on the platforms of railway stations now. It is a
businessman or woman carrying a laptop in one hand and a brief case in the other.
And yet they are still on the phone. By using an earpiece and a small microphone
they can make calls hands free. This must be the dream of the phone companies.