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It's a sordid tale of shameless hustling, mixed in with some good old-fashioned guerrilla marketing and public relations, and with more production values than Titanic.
In other words, yet another marketing story.
The blame, and there will be blame, lays squarely at the feet of my brother, Victor Wong.
A New Yorker, and the former art director at Seventeen and YM magazines, Victor, brilliant, talented and at times certifiably insane, decided he was tired of cooking up pastel-pink and neon-green teeny bopper covers every season. He needed a real challenge away from the grime of New York.
So, about a decade ago, off he went back to the place of our birth, Montego Bay, Jamaica. (Don't ask me how, but our parents had emigrated there from China in the 1950s, their children coalescing into a volatile mix of Marley and Mao.)
My father had started a grocery store there, a glorified Becker's really, and Victor happily reopened the store, downsizing his career for the pleasures of selling milk and flour in exchange for sunshine, some decent fishing and a chance once more to dabble in egg tempera.
During this time I avoided visiting Victor for good reason.
The last time I arrived with my wife Sharon, we had visions of sipping pina coladas on a sun-dappled beach. Instead, we ended up wrapping salt fish and packing flour, which, in a twisted way, we kind of enjoyed - sort of like the dupes who pay to paint the fence in Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer.
But it was inevitable that Victor would lapse into boredom. His creative juices were not satiated by creating signage such as ``Banana chips, two for a dollar,'' or the brilliantly succinct ``Shoplifters will be shot.''
So the wheels once again started to turn. And this is where the marketing part of the story comes in.
Jamaica was in the midst of an AIDS scare, and the newspapers were calling for an education campaign on the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. One of the biggest problems was the lack of condom usage by men and teens. Wearing a condom just wasn't a cool thing to do. But it was costing lives.
Clear on the other side of the world in Asia, the spectre of AIDS had already taken a toll in Thailand. In response, some of the best condom manufacturers in the world had concentrated around Bangkok to fight the AIDS crisis. And then, in 1997, the Asian economy stalled and the Thai baht plunged deeper than a Marlen Cowpland neckline.
Victor sensed a business opportunity. After much research, he ended up partnering with a factory in Thailand that made condoms for some of the top brands in the world.
But he didn't want to sell other people's condoms. He wanted to market his own, especially to the teen population that didn't think wearing condoms was cool.
I'd like to think it was an opportunity sparked by some measure of conscience and a sense of commitment to bettering the world.
Sure, he made a profit, but I envisioned a company sort of like a Ben & Jerry's or The Body Shop, but instead of selling ice cream or foot lotion he sold condoms with bumps or ``studs'' on them. That's what I told my friends, anyway.
At the time of his brainstorm, the Number 1 hit on the Jamaican airwaves was a song by Jamaican reggae artist Beenie Man called ``Slam,'' which, as you can guess, is the Jamaican term for, well, you know what.
Knowing that music and MTV are a powerful influence on teens, Victor decided to sign up the Grammy Award-nominated Beenie Man for television advertisements. He also decided to name the condom after the song and hire Beenie Man's girlfriend Carlene to pose for the condom package.
Carlene, who goes by single name, à la Cher, is a huge star in Jamaica and Europe, having ignited the ``dance-hall queen'' genre, doing the sort of onstage gymnastics that make lap dancing look prudish.
So by 1998, armed with a factory, the name of a condom and a cover subject, Victor found himself in business.
He flew Carlene up to New York to be photographed by our cousin, Walter Chin, a former art student of Victor's, for the inaugural cover packet of Slam.
Walter, one of the top fashion photographers in the world, and used to shooting covers for Vogue, Elle and GQ, thankfully waived his $25,000 (U.S.) daily fee.
But this was a far cry from shooting his last Chanel No. 5 campaign and he wasn't sure exactly what to do. So he put Carlene in red latex and started taking pictures. The photos were so graphic, everyone gave a collective gasp when they saw them. Would this fly, even in the laissez-faire business universe of Jamaica?
Slam launched into the Jamaican market in 1998, blitzing radio, television and newspapers.
I found myself conscripted into the campaign, but instead of wrapping fish I was now writing and e-mailing press releases from my home in Markham on the merits of studded latex (``Studded for the wickedest ride'').
Then controversy struck. One newspaper ran a campaign saying it was a disgrace the Jamaican flag was printed on the back of a pack of contraceptives. Government MPs started to get into the fray, saying it reflected poorly on the country.
By the end of the week, there wasn't one person on the island of more than 2 million who hadn't heard about Slam.
Within a year the condom had become the best-selling brand on the island, proving once again there is no such thing as bad publicity.
Using Ben & Jerry's as a business model, Victor donated a portion of his proceeds to AIDS hospices and other charities. He also sent Carlene to schools to speak about condom use, and gave away thousands of dollars of condoms to those at risk.
Soon, at nightclubs and dance halls throughout the island, you weren't hip if you didn't carry your pack of Slam.
Back in Markham and oblivious her son had become the Condom King of Jamaica, our mother, who had just about convinced us we were immaculately conceived, prepared for her first trip back to Montego Bay in years.
When she first saw Victor again earlier this year, she did the usual mother stuff - cooked him a 10-course meal that had him stumbling about the room like Pavarotti on his second Extra Value Meal, and told him to get a haircut.
That was before she entered the storeroom filled with about $100,000 worth of latex.
``What's this?'' she asked.
Sharon and I excused ourselves and ran for the nearest Sandals resort, not showing up again for about a week. Why stick around, we figured, since you could pretty much interchange ``Condom King'' and ``Crack-Cocaine King'' and get the same response?
It wouldn't be a pretty scene.
Victor somehow managed to survive Mom's wrath, and over the last year continued his quest toward world condom domination, exporting to other Caribbean countries such as Trinidad, St. Lucia, Barbados and Antigua.
We thought he would confine his empire-building to the Caribbean. Until he heard about a show called The Everything To Do With Sex Show that started Thursday at the Automotive Building at Toronto's Canadian National Exhibition and runs until tomorrow.
The show, the first of its kind in Canada, showcases just about everything you ever wanted to know about sex. Essentially it's a huge adult mall that's open to the public (for the price of admission). There's everything from lingerie to cross-dressing fashion to some guy who's demonstrating hair transplants. (Don't ask me why that's sexy.)
Anyway, that's where I come in.
It seems being the Condom King of the Universe keeps my brother busy, so he had to cancel out at the last minute, leaving his Canadian partner Robert Lee, of The Rubber Guys, short-handed.
(That's right, The Rubber Guys. And Slam is manufactured by my brother's parent company No Glove, No Love. I wish I was making this up.)
So guess who's stuck staffing the booth?
On the first day of the show, my first mistake was showing up at the National Trade Centre instead of the Automotive Building at the CNE.
I asked a nice, middle-aged lady if this is the ``sex show'' building. I wondered why she is looking at me strangely, when I noticed a huge sign that says: ``Welcome To The Creative Sewing And Needlework Festival.''
Turning beet red, I slinked across the street to the automotive building.
Inside, I passed a booth selling X-rated videos, a stage with strippers on it and a guy selling a ``virtual sex machine'' for $369 (U.S.).
``Come on, stick your finger in,'' offered Eric White, the inventor.
I took a rain check, and instead headed for the refuge of the Slam booth tucked in beside the stall for Whiplash, Canada's Fetish Magazine, and The Gentle Vasectomy Clinic.
By virtue of sitting in the booth eating a bag of stale peanuts, I was peppered with questions to which I had no answers.
``What's it flavoured with? What's the spermicide content?''
Ah, I'll get back to you.
The owner of Lovecraft Ltd., the landmark Yorkville store, dropped by and said she'd seen my Web site and would love to talk prices. I hadn't even known we had a Web site, but pretended to know what I was doing.
By the end of the day I'd lost track of all the sales I had cost Victor.
Actually, I spent more energy worried that I was going to bump into an old high school teacher (who's going to be more embarrassed then?) than worrying about sales.
If you're looking for me, come in past the front door and turn right at the House of Perversions. I'm the guy cowering under the table across from the lady hawking the giant vibrators.
But don't tell Mom.
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