In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt was nearing the end of a hard-fought presidential election campaign. To reinforce his position, he decided to distribute a pamphlet which – as it is expected – has his picture on the cover. Inside was the transcript of a speech called “Confession of Faith”. Three million copies of the brochure had been printed. Just before starting distribution of the pamphlets, one of the workers noticed a small line on the photograph that read: “Moffett Studios – Chicago”. Moffett held the copyright and no-one had obtained permission to use the photo. Unauthorized use of the photo, estimated to incur $3 million. Campaign team quickly realized that there’s no way except negotiating with Moffett. Further research, revealed bad news: Moffett was financially hard up, and approaching retirement with a “Money-Focused” mindset. George Perkins, campaign manager, decided to send the following message to the Moffett studios: We are planning to distribute millions of pamphlets with Roosevelt’s picture on the cover. It will be great publicity for the studio whose photograph we use. How much will you pay us to use yours? You can guess Moffett’s answer: We have never done this before. But under the circumstances, we’d be pleased to offer you $250. Perkins accepted the offer, without asking for more !
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 06:16:47 +0000
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