San Francisco, September 1971: This was the Yellow-Page ad that created Network Answering Service in San Francisco. It worked.
Here’s what happened:
On the lower right corner of this artwork, the artist’s signature is “LEI,” which stands for Steve Leialoha, who lived in the mission district of San Francisco. And if you go get an old “Howard the Duck” comic book. then in the comic book, you will see that the “inker” for Howard the Duck was … Steve Leialoha.
They make comic book artwork in two steps: (1) a guy, using pencil, maps out each page’s layout (and they can make any pencil corrections), and then
when they’re ready, (2) a different artist, called the inker, does the artwork for the page, on top of the pencil layout.
So if my advert reminds you of Howard the Duck, that’s because the artist who drew all those Howard the Duck comic books was the same guy who made my advert for Network Answering Service … Mr. Steve Leialoha.
The Other Duckies …
Leialoha actually did a number of different images for me for the answering service, and then later he did a number of different images for my Thumbtack Bugle postering service. The answering service image was in the yellow pages and in our information packages and on bulletin boards around San Francisco, with take-one yellow cardboard “ducky cards,” the size and shape of a business card, but showing this ducky image and our phone number (668-7777).
(The other names I tested for the answering service included “Secret Agent Answering Service,” “Outer Space Answering Service,” and “Ms. D’s Answering Service.”)
These were images, which we didn’t use.
The Thumbtack Bugle images were on posters–and may still be–on bulletin boards all around San Francisco.
Which Name Did People Call?
And in the yellow pages, the first year, I placed a half-dozen different names, to see which one people called the most.
These included: “A Budget Answering Service,” “Network Answering Service,” “Sundial Answering Service,” “Xanadu Answering Service,” and “Western Eclectic Answering Service.”
Guess which name won?
You got it. They called “A Budget Answering Service.”
Hello. How may I help you?
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