Selling Sindy- Life on the Road with Pedigree Salesman
We are delighted to add a new page to our Pedigree history section in the museum. It can be found under the “Canterbury’s Pedigree factory” heading.
I have wanted to write about the Pedigree Sales Reps for a very long time. They were important part of Pedigree’s product supply chain. Before the digital age Pedigree relied upon visiting Sales Reps to visit toy shops and other stores that had a toy section to show them Pedigree’s latest products. Without this team, Pedigree products, including Sindy, would not have been so comprehensively stocked by shops up and down the country.
The Sales Reps were skilled and knowledgeable people. They had to have very good interpersonal skills, and they needed to know what it was that they sold. They were not expected to be walking catalogues but instead were encouraged to hold conversations with their Buyers to help them make the right decisions as to what their shop should stock.
This page has been written using the folders of Mr Roger Barreau who worked for Pedigree from the 1960s to the early 1980s. When he left Pedigree, his folders and Pedigree samples were all stored in the loft, where they remained for over 40 years. He kept meticulous records and his folders for each year contain a wealth of information not just about the selling of Sindy, but all the other Pedigree products. To begin with, it was all quite bewildering, particularly because Sindy was only part of what Pedigree produced and sold.
Whilst this page may not be of interest to all museum visitors, do you have a look at the marvellous samples and marketing materials that were used to sell Sindy products. Personally, every time I looked in a folder, I would find something else that I felt just had to be included.
My own personal favourite is the rather magnificent bungalow shop display from 1977 shown here, but there are all sorts here. Lovely photographs, Sindy samples, special offers and even an excellent briefing on Sindy’s wrist watch. It was a pleasure to write it all down before it got lost in time.
The files also answered questions we have long wondered about such as; why did the 1973 Skinny Legged Walker have Gauntlet hands in the Catalogue, and why can you find 1979 Sindy Majorette as an Active (Ballerina) Sindy? Kathy spotted these anomalies years ago and we ultimately took the decision to write about what we actually owned.
Mr. Barreau’s files also shed new light on the corporate history of Pedigree. One of the hardest aspects of writing about Pedigree is that considering it was a profitable toy company, very little is actually written down about it. The files provided new leads and pointed my research in the right direction. Where necessary, pages across OSM have been revised to include this new information. Bit by bit as we add Sindy dolls, her outfits and scenesetters, we are also capturing the history of the company who made her so that it all doesn’t get forgotten.
It’s amazing what is still out there and if any of the old Pedigree Sales Reps read the page and if they have any comments or anything else that they think we should note on the page, we would love to hear from them.
We are very grateful to the family of Mr Roger Barreau for so generously sharing his work folders with us so that this new page could be written.
