As Advertised

"Well, that sounds gross and weird. It’ll just freak everyone out. I don’t like it."

Two men stood over a massive monitor with a display full of design elements, one man looking to the other for feedback and wincing when they realized the response they anticipated was not coming. Once again, the marketing plan was a failure. This was Sanny’s seventh - seventh! - time coming up and failing to succeed with a catchy phrase for the new product being offered by a company whose name can’t be mentioned on here.

Sanny’s supervisor, James, was growing tired and it was becoming very visible. The two had, after all, been working on this specific marketing package for roughly ten hours today and had a tight deadline of 12:00AM. It was currently approaching 5:00PM, and James knew he’d never hear the end of it from his wife as he was working yet another late night.

“What do you think I can do with this though? I’ve tried to think through at least twenty different iterations of this one and even AI has been a waste!” Sanny responded, exasperated as he was reaching his wits’ end.

In all honesty, James didn’t really have an answer for this. He put his hands in his face as he stepped away from the desk, and walked away to his office. This left Sanny standing there with no clear direction on what to do next with the designs curated to drive consumers to this new product. Sanny sat back down in his computer chair, looking to the tiled ceiling that was dimly lit by fluorescent lighting. He knew this product was going to have a lot of scrutiny when it was announced, and didn’t want to be the person to have it marketed to unsuspecting people.

He knew this could potentially be dangerous. After all, it was a lethal euthanasia drink.

How do you market death? Sammy continued to ponder to himself. He had a mockup of the product itself, which was an unnamed (he had to figure this part out as well) mini-bottle, not too dissimilar from the liquor bottles commonly offered on airplanes. Sanny never had issues with marketing products to others - in fact, he was the top marketing executive within the firm, and well sought-after for the past few years from all of the major corporations.

Sanny never imagined he’d be doing this type of work, and had a completely different version in his mind on how the 2040s would be for him. He was approaching his late 40s, single and though very wealthy, he was lonely. This feeling of loneliness began to tug at him more frequently within the past few months, and had begun throwing him off of his performance at work. He shrugged these thoughts off as he looked at the upper right-hand area of the display:

Monday, November 12th, 2046 | 4:43PM EST

Ugh. Like many others, Sanny was never a fan of Mondays, especially when he had partied just the night before at a local bar. The term “party” is used somewhat loosely here, as generally all he did was drown himself in his usual drink, a gin and tonic, and people-watched the younger adults become inebriated and act out while his consciousness slowly eroded.

A message appeared on the display. It was from James.

James: Are you stuck in space? I can see that you’ve been zoning out for the past 10 minutes. This contract is our biggest one ever and I need your head in the game!

Sanny peeked from around the display, looking through the glass windows into James’ office. James was staring directly back at him and made a gesture pointing to his wrist, then shrugging while shaking his head at Sanny. Rolling his eyes, Sanny turned his attention back to the display. Thoughts began invading his brain.

Okay, let’s see now - death, death, death why would someone want to die? Money problems? No, that was already rejected as an idea. Health issues? That might cause problems seeing as how the pharmaceutical field is pretty wealthy and litigious. Maybe it could be something that we spin and … Market to kids? What am I thinking!?

With mind scrambled, Sanny decided to step away from his desk and go outside for a breather. He hadn’t taken a break or even eaten all day, but this was just how things were in this field of work. Making his way down the elevator from the 165th floor, he decided to go out to the outdoor park on the 80th floor. Sanny frequented this area when he needed to clear his mind.

Walking outside of the elevator and through the communal space, decorated in sleek lighting and furnished with various luxury couches, chairs and minibars, Sanny approached the double automatic doors to the outdoor park. The doors opened and he walked outside.

In front of him was what looked like a floating garden, with various plants designed in a circular pattern around a massive fountain and long planter boxes with other flowers and native plants. The outdoor space as a whole was roughly half the size of a football field, and was a massive platform on the side of this supertall skyscraper. Sanny noticed nobody was there as he began his walk around the gardens, which had the bench he frequented on the other side.

Sitting down, Sanny realized he left his smartvisor on his desk. Oh well, he didn’t want to be bothered by James anyway and really needed to disconnect for a moment. He began looking out into the distance, which was framed by other various skyscrapers full of people working on whatever was important to their companies. People working for a living and loathing what they were doing, while being underpaid.

Tired of being just another line of code and want to be erased?

Nah, that wouldn’t work. Sanny got up and walked to one of the edges of the park. He propped his arms up among the railing as he looked down. The busy street was full of automated vehicles, whizzing through the grid of streets throughout the massive city and dropping people off at their intended destinations. It was pretty interesting to him how vehicle automation improved so much over time.

No need to run in front of a bus!

At this rate, he’d never come up with a good way to sell this product.

“Why did the firm approve this product to be marketed?” Sanny said out loud while looking back up and forward, out to the distance. This wasn’t typically the type of client the firm worked with, and for it to be this type of client for a product that causes the side effect aforementioned, he realized he never actually questioned why this was even something being entertained.

“There’s too many people here,” Sanny heard a voice behind him, partially muffled by the sound of the large fountain. He turned around to no longer face the open air and faced the fountain and gardens again.

In front of him was a woman, dressed in a light gray pantsuit and holding her smartvisor in her left hand.

“What do you mean? It’s just me and you here”, Sanny asked.

“There’s too many people here - on Earth”, the woman responded. She walked over to the bench between her and Sanny, and sat down on the left side. She patted next to her, gesturing for Sanny to sit by her.

“Oh, you’re referring to the rampant overpopulation of the planet. I thought that was solved by generative construction using asteroid mining from the one we captured in 2041, along with the transition to insect nutrient farming?” Sanny responded. He was now intrigued.

“It’s probably better I show than tell with this one,” the woman responded. Randomly, Sanny had a feeling he wasn’t going to get the woman’s name. He had never seen her in this building and was curious what division she worked in.

“How do you know all of this - how can I trust what you’re talking about?” Sanny finally sat down by the woman. She gestured to Sanny to grab her smartvisor.

Sanny knew that viewing anyone else’s smartvisors, which were the firm’s property, was against company policy. This didn’t stop his curiosity from causing his hands to grab the smartvisor and put it on his face. The familiar startup noise echoed through the bone conduction elements on either side of the visor. The visor was awaiting input.

The woman leaned closer to Sanny and uttered, “Play client 84, meeting 7”. An augmented reality video box appeared in Sanny’s field of vision, with a play button in the middle. Around the massive white play button, he made out a conference room without any windows, with a singular door. All conference rooms for client meetings were on the upper floors. Something seemed off.

“Where was this meet -”

“There’s secret floors underground for video conferences to take place with some of our highest profile and most private clients. You’re not supposed to know this, but I’m tired of being the only person involved with it”, the woman responded.

Sanny tapped the side of the smartvisor and the video began playing. The woman, who was currently sitting next to him was wearing a burgundy suit in this video, and walked into the room to sit at the middle of the table. She pressed a button on a console at the center of the table. SECURE MEETING IN PROGRESS was announced by a disembodied voice. A screen appeared on the wall opposite the woman, with 4 phone numbers on the screen and nothing else. Nobody showed their faces on video.

“So, tell me why you’re wanting to roll this product out. To my understanding, we’re looking at marketing a drink that is designed to kill people?” she asked.

One of the phone numbers lit up on the screen. A voice, garbled to create anonymity, responded to the concerned woman sitting in the conference room:

“The world governments have uncovered a problem. We ran quite a few models and brought our top research teams together for an unmarked project once red flags appeared in some of the data. What we thought was the perfect solution for overpopulation has been an oversight. At this rate we have only ten years before our current sustenance production methods are outpaced by population growth. We have to have a way to curb the population without it causing too much concern. This can never get out,” the voice concluded.

The woman was visibly shocked.

“Let’s get to the point here. Why my firm for this? You can use anyone across the world to get this out to everyone, so what’s the point in using my team?” she asked.

That’s when Sanny realized this woman was the president of the company - she was the face of his firm, a face that was never made public or discussed. He looked over at the woman through the visor, and then back in front of him. Sanny continued watching the video.

“This is just one of many phases and with you owning not just the firm, but also multiple media outlets, it just made sense to us. Oh and please be aware that this is not a request, it’s an order,” a different phone number responded.

The video stopped. Sanny felt sick. He didn’t want to know this information. He took the visor off and handed it back to the woman.

“So, population control is the plan, and you’re the real president of not only this firm, company, but also multiple media outlets? This is a lot at once and I’m not sure what to think of it.”

“I don’t expect you to understand, it’s a lot to take in and I feel pretty rough about it myself.”

The woman stood up and walked away, leaving Sanny in shock.

I can’t be a part of this! I’m not going to be responsible for millions of dead people.

Sanny looked ahead. He knew James would eventually be looking for him, wondering what was causing delays on the current project. Sanny wasn’t going back up the elevator to work on the newest marketing campaign, though.

Sanny stood up and began walking forward. He reached the railing in front of him and it didn’t take much effort to climb over it. Proximity sirens designed to deter jumpers began sounding off. Sanny didn’t know this, but hundreds of people in the building were now watching him from their respective floors. Sanny wanted to go out on his terms and not be a part of this horrible plan.

A few moments later, a man was exiting an automated car and headed into the firm when he heard a loud crunching and scraping sound, mixed with an explosion. He felt something wet hit his back. He turned around to look behind him and saw a man, folded up like an accordion, on top of the car he just exited. The man screamed. A smartwatch, freed from the now partially destroyed wrist, was flung to the ground without shattering. A call was coming in from James.

***

People were going in and out of the high speed rail station’s busy fast food restaurant, picking up orders and rushing to their departures. On a massive display near the entrance of the restaurant, an image with a bright green background appeared. A small blue bottle materialized into the middle of the image on the screen.

At the top of the image was the final version of the slogan the advertising firm finally settled with, after continuing to work hurriedly after one of their top executives unexpectedly passed away.

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