This Top Salesman is Different
His Head is Like a Flying Saucer
It's another stuffy trade show, when suddenly a rollicking robot in the form of a Heinz ketchup bottle comes rolling into the crowd. "Hello there, you macho dude," it blurts to a startled conventioneer. "That's a very nice suit you have jammed on your body." The man hurries on red-faced as nearby conventioneers double over in laughter.
While robots may seem to be old hat, they're still show-stoppers. It doesn't matter that most of the mechanical boxes have the IQ of a garage door opener or that they owe their wit to humans at the controls a few yards away. People love robots, and the robot entertainment business is booming.
Robust Robotics...
The mechanical vaudevillians are successful convention-rousers. At the recent Food Marketing Institute show in Chicago, for instance, a robot hired by the Stroh Brewery Co. quickly drew a crowd. The six-foot two-inch device, with blinking eyes and a head like a flying saucer, approached a young woman and asked her to dance. Without hesitating, she hopped on the robot's platform and slowly twirled around Stroh's display booth.
William J. Hayes, Stroh's director of national sales, swears by robots, "I used to ask whether people would remember us. I never worry about that now," he says.
Easily Fooled
Strangely, many people are fooled by the gizmos. "God, that's amazing," says one convention-goer as she watches the Stroh's robot talk in French to three Canadians. "I didn't think technology was this far along."
- Alex Kotlowitz, Wall Street JournalFor more information, please contact Robots 4 Fun.