Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

Gordon Atkinson’s  Land of La Mancha  is the finest literary work of loneliness that has been chronicled since Henry David Thoreau spent 2 years on Walden Pond. Here is how Thoreau opens that most iconic of early American books: “When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myse...

In 2011, the attention of our nation was consumed by the economic problems caused by the sub-prime mortgage debacle of 2008. That’s why everyone thought I was crazy when I wrote these words… “Western Society is in danger of becoming self-righteous, sanctimonious and insufferably judgmental. If history is to be our guide, the next 20 years will be when we move from our agreement of mutual brok...

Johnny Molson sent me a video of an elderly Ukrainian woman walking up to a heavily armed Russian soldier, the point man of a force that was occupying her town. Looking him in the face, she said, “Put sunflower seeds in your pocket so flowers will grow when you die.”  * The note that came with the video said, “That’s a Patrick Henry/Paul Revere level story. That’s the shit Churchill wished he...

Motivational speakers often tell their followers to visualize accomplishing their desired outcomes; to mentally go into the future and feel the joy of that not-yet-happened moment. Visualization is the mental rehearsal of possible future events. When the word “rehearse” was invented more than 700 years ago, it meant to hear again; to re-hear. I am an ad writer. My job is to get people to repeatedl...

A brief summary of this episodeThe goal of branding is to build a relationship with future customers. When a relationship has finally been established, you become who these people think of immediately – and feel the best about – when they, or any of their friends, need what you sell. Direct marketers often disdain mass media because it doesn’t allow them to “target and track” their prey. But these...

There are four kinds of thought. Verbal Thought  is hearing a voice in your mind. Analytical Thought  is deductive reasoning that seeks to forecast a result. Abstract Thought  embraces fantasy and all things intangible. Symbolic Thought  relates the unknown to the known. The pattern-recognition power of the right brain connects new ideas [abstract thought] with known infor...

Storm is a character in my mind. No, not so much a character as a caricature, an icon, an archetype. I occasionally meet Storm in the real world. Storm is sometimes male, sometimes female. You’ve met Storm, too. Storm is easily infatuated.  Storm is in love with Love.  Storm talks a lot about passion. But Storm is a rabbit, a mouse who runs at the first sign of difficulty or hardship. Do...

You and I  spoke last week  about shadows being “holes in the light” that speak of past actions and their consequences. We are not the first to make that observation. The ancient Egyptians believed your shadow was the spent energy coming off you and dying in this world. Your shadow was separate from you but part of you, always there. The reason you could not see your shadow at night is b...

Your actions cast a shadow across space and time, affecting people directly – or indirectly – for generations. You already know this. The rest of what I’m about to tell you is speculative, but I believe I am right: Visually, a shadow is a hole in the light. A shadow carries the distorted shape of a moment beyond the moment itself. A shadow speaks of consequences. A silhouette is not a shadow. A si...

I learned about advertising from listening to my eighth-grade football coaches. “Every play is a touchdown play if everyone on the team does their assignment properly.” That was one of the two things they bellowed at us every day. The other one was this: “If you succeed in football, you will succeed in life.” I was only 12 years old but that didn’t mean I was an idiot. I finished that season, but...

Twenty-three years ago, roving reporter Rotbart said to me, “You are three different people. 1. There is the person you see when you look in the mirror. 2. There is the person other people see when they look at you. 3. There is the real you, the person no one can see but God.” Objective reality exists. I do not dispute it. Rotbart’s argument – and mine – is that you and he and I are not equipped t...

“Hoare writes with the license of the nonexpert; you can feel the delight he takes in being unbound by anything but his enthusiasms.” John Williams was describing Philip Hoare when he wrote that line, but he could easily have been describing me. As a nonexpert, I am free to speculate and arrive at my own conclusions. So are you. And so is your customer. You, me, and your customer claim we use dedu...

The limiting factors that will challenge business owners in 2022 are inflation, Covid, and the recruitment of good employees. The bad news is that I can give you the solution to only 1 of these 3 problems. The good news is that it’s the big one: the recruitment of good employees. Ivan Pavlov won the Nobel prize for proving it’s not hard to sell a dog on the taste of meat. Successful jewelers know...

Matthew McConaughey writes in his book,  Green Lights, “Cool is a natural law. If it was cool for THAT time, then it is cool for ALL time. A fad is just a branch on Cool’s trunk; a fashionable fling whose 15 minutes can never abide, no matter how long she trends to try. Cool stands the test of time, because cool never tries. Cool just is.” My friend Crazy Tony taught me about “cool” 45 years...

When your intuitive mind senses a pattern and begins to search for the completion of that pattern, we call this, “curiosity”. But sometimes our searching for the completion of a pattern goes sideways, takes a shortcut, gets it wrong. The false logic that springs to mind as a result of this wrong turn is so common that it has a Latin name, “Post Hoc, ergo Propter Hoc.” Blame Isaac Newton. Newton ta...

I’ve been saying for 20 years that I’m going to write a buddy movie about Jesus and the 12. I’ve got the whole thing in my head. But who am I to put words in the mouth of Jesus? The idea of creating a fictional Jesus who does and says things that are not in the Bible could easily be the pinnacle of hubris. I believe John Steinbeck was gripped by a similar fear. He and Elaine rented a cottage in En...

“Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with.” – Rebecca Solnit In just 25 words, Rebecca gave “hope” a new identity, introduced a new purpose for it, and caused us to imagine the beginning of a new adventure. She supplied the words, but we created the movie in our minds. Persuaders don’t tell you the truth; they lead...

My friend Don has a time machine. He takes me with him sometimes. You should come, too! Every person who rides in Don’s time machine is changed by it. The United States Department of Justice has booked passage on Don’s time machine for countless prison inmates. State and local governments and hundreds of rehab centers have booked journeys for people as well. Thirty-five million in all. Each trip t...

Creativity is counterintuitive. You hate it when you are handcuffed and expected to do your best work, but the secret of doing your best work is to be handcuffed. Creative restraints bring out the best in you. When Sean Jones sold controlling interest in Spence Diamonds a number of years ago, I left that company when he did, just as I left when Dewey Jenkins sold his company two weeks ago. My rela...

When Pennie and I were preparing to move away from the town of our childhood, I told my friend Phil that I felt I was holding onto the end of a rope in the half-light of limbo, and I had no idea where the other end of the rope was tied. I have never forgotten what he said. “This is your time in the elevator. You are between two worlds. You are leaving behind the way it has been, but you have not y...

“Unless your goal is to go backwards, you cannot make progress while staring into the rear-view mirror.” An opening statement like that would usually indicate a motivational message, but I’m doing something different today. I’m not backing up and I’m not moving forward. I’m pausing to look at the long road behind me and the short road ahead. A reflective mood requires a rear-view mirror. I’ve spen...

King Edward of England inherited control of Gascony in France from his mother, Eleanor of Provence, a French noble. But when the 27-year-old King of France decided in 1295 not to let the King of England control part of his country, Edward asked his English nobles to raise an army so that he could regain control of his real estate on the other side of the water. His nobles said, “Edward, Gascony do...

On a Rainy Autumn Day… October 18, 2021 Listen A His father called him Bunny because he was born on Easter Sunday. Bunny’s younger brother got a scholarship to Harvard. I’ve had both of Bunny’s phone numbers memorized for the past 48 years and I mention his name at least once a week. “Don’t make me say Loren L. Lewis” has been a private joke between the Princess and me since we were 17 years old....

In America, “generosity” implies an openhanded sharing of material resources. A restaurant can serve generous portions. A donor can be generous with their money. A friend can be generous with their pickup truck, their lawnmower, or their cabin at the lake. While some people are generous with their money; others are generous with their time. They will drive you to the airport, feed your pet while y...

Did you know that  mood  and  mode  share the same root word?1 I point this out because you cannot take your customer where you want them to go until you first meet them  where they are.  And where they are is in one of two different moods, or  modes  of shopping: transactional mode and relational mode. Each of us operates in both modes, but we tend to choos...