Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

Meats and vegetables are ordinary, but put them on a stick and it’s Shish Kabob. Frozen Kool-Aid is frozen Kool-Aid; put it on a stick and it’s a popsicle. A marshmallow is one thing, but a marshmallow on a stick means a campfire. A frankfurter is a weenie, but a frankfurter on a stick is a weenie roast. And what are hors d’oeuvres but little pieces of something-on-a-stick? And what is fondue...

Before we examine the blind spot, let’s stare into the face of the truth for a moment: People don’t bond with a company. People bond with a personality. Apple didn’t wait until they were category-dominant to develop a personality. They had personality in 1984 when they aired their famous SuperBowl ad. They had personality in 1997 when cultural icons in black-and-white photos encouraged us to “Thin...

The content of your heart is what your heart contains. Are you content? Same spelling, different meaning. We distinguish these words only by the syllable we stress. Words are amazing, don’t you think? If you are content, (satisfied, happy, at peace,) it is because of the content of your heart. If the content of your heart is anxiety, fear, envy and anger, it is difficult to be content. Who determi...

We shall pass through this time of uncertainty and emerge as happier people. We will enjoy a renewed sense of the importance of relationships. Our priorities will be altered. Optimism is about staying focused on positive outcomes. I don’t know Andy Bounds but he’s a good friend of Doug Burdon and Doug is a friend of mine. According to Andy Bounds, Walt Disney stayed focused on positive outcomes. W...

NOTE FROM INDY BEAGLE – After the wizard recorded today’s MMMemo, he recorded a video called  Advertising in a Time of Crisis.  You should watch it. Now here is today’s memo… One of my heroes, John Steinbeck, twice followed in the footsteps of another of my heroes, Robert Louis Stevenson. Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes  is a travelogue written by RLS in 1878. The Sea of Corte...

Perhaps you’ve noticed that fewer couples are choosing to get married. This decline in the marriage rate has been slow, but it is a cultural shift that makes me uneasy. The first reason for my uneasiness is that I believe marriage is more than a piece of paper. Something wonderful happens when a couple embraces a legal alteration of their separate identities to become partners for life. Marriage i...

A contrast of opposites is the foundation of effective communication. A thing cannot exist without its opposite. But opposites aren’t always easy to detect. As an example, the opposite of “freedom” isn’t really “slavery,” because slavery no longer exists in our society like it did 160 years ago. We need to contrast freedom with something experiential, something we have all felt. Responsibility is...

Twenty-one years ago I got a phone call from my publisher, Ray Bard. “Roy, a man in Denver just bought 350 copies of your book from a bookstore in Denver and then faxed the receipt to my office with a question scribbled on it.” “What was the question?” I asked. “He wrote, ‘Is this enough for you to arrange a meeting with the author?’” A couple of weeks later, the man arrived in Austin and we spent...

Richard Kessler built one of the most famous stores in America. You might remember his name from  the Monday Morning Memo about origin stories  published on March 20, 2017.  Here is Kessler’s origin story in a 60-second radio ad: My Dad was a house painter. He taught me to sand and scrape paint until my fingers were aching and raw. But I wanted to make him proud, so I always worked...

My friend has been important to me for 6 or 7 years. I had no idea that he had any money until about 3 years ago. My friend is a professional gambler. No, he doesn’t gamble on green felt tables with cards or dice. He gambles on NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange. “Oh, he’s an investor,” you say. “No, I’m a highly informed gambler,” he responds. My friend wins 7 out of every 8 bets and makes ab...

The first obelisk was a stone pillar with a tapered top created by the ancient Egyptians to honor the sun god. It is a finger, pointing to the sky. The Roman army carried Egyptian obelisks back to Rome as a sign of their power over that nation. The Vatican uncovered a buried Egyptian obelisk five hundred years ago and placed it in St. Peter’s Square as a sign of Catholicism’s victory ove...

It takes four people to make a world. One person wants acceptance. They hope to save the relationship. Under pressure, they acquiesce. One person wants accuracy. They hope to save face. Under pressure, they avoid. One person wants applause. They hope to save effort. Under pressure, they attack. One person wants accomplishment. They hope to save time. Under pressure, they become autocratic. When I...

Thomas Mann, the winner of the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature, said, “A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” I agree with Thomas Mann. Having logged more than 39,000 hours of writing during the past 30 years, I can say with confidence that no sane person fights quite so fiercely or so long to find exactly the right word as does the writer. And to hear...

Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from bad decisions. Bad decisions aren’t made because a person is stupid. Bad decisions are often the result of logic. The first thing experience will teach you is, “Not everything logical is true.” Logic among advertising professionals says, “Always target the right customer.” But if you embrace that premise, you will gravitate to online marke...

My most successful ads in 2019 were the ones where I refrained from using logic, but chose instead to speak to the unconscious mind. Advertise your product to the conscious mind of a customer and you will likely be met with doubt, disinterest, and suspicion. But the unconscious mind greets you with none of these. Speaking to the unconscious is not nearly so complicated as it sounds. Here’s a recen...

1:  You are the product of your genetic code, hardwired to behave in certain ways. 2:  You are the product of your environment, the sum total of your influences. 3:  You are the product of your choices. It is your preferences, not your surroundings, that define you. I believe it is a mistake to cling too tightly to any of these 3 ideas. Each of them is true, I think, but not to the...

I want you to be in Austin on May 2nd if you can. The Princess has chosen the perfect location for  The House of Bilbo Baggins,  and there’s a chance we may have something for you to see when you get here. We have also begun construction on  The Village of the Lost Boys  and we ought to have the first two of the cabins in that village mostly completed by then. You remember...

When you begin to write, the words and phrases that leap into your mind will be the ones you hear most often. Go ahead and write them down. The best writers begin by just blurting it out. A willingness to write badly is the key to writing well. After winning the Pulitzer prize for fiction, James Michener said, “I have never thought of myself as a good writer. Anyone who wants reassurance of that s...

An unhappy person who talks about “the way things ought to” be has a decision to make. They need to take action, or They need to shut up and get on with their life. I’m sorry if that sounded cold and harsh. Allow me to explain. “The Way Things Ought to Be” is a fantasy world. Complaining that you don’t live there is pointless. “The Way Things Really Are” is the world you live in. Learn to navigate...

What is the canvas of your artistic expression? “Pen and ink,” says the writer. “Wet clay” says a sculptor, “Wood” says another, “Stone” says a third. And then the painters chime in, singing, “Oils,” “Pencils,” “Charcoal,” and “Acrylic” in 4-part harmony. “Film” shouts a cinematographer, “Pixels” shouts another, and the photographers beat a steady rhythm on the lens covers of their cameras. Our ow...

My business partners meet twice a year to spend a few days together. A transcription of their discussions during these meetings could easily become a bestselling book. A number of my partners have grown far beyond anything I ever taught them, which makes answering their questions a lot easier for me. I employ a mildly deceptive technique that has been used by teachers throughout history: When conf...

People need your encouragement more than they need your advice. A little encouragement at a pivotal time makes all the difference. I am giving you a Christmas gift: When you have opened it, you will become the right person, doing the right thing, at the right time, in the right way. To open your gift, you need only to buy what the kids are selling. Randy Phillips gave me this gift and I’m glad he...

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are used for measuring departmental performance within a company. The goal of KPIs is continual improvement. The subtle danger of KPIs is that they can lead us to prioritize efficiency over effectiveness, and short-term objectives over long-term. A Police Chief told his officers to prioritize burglaries of multiple-occupancy households because the system woul...

Symbolic thought is commonly expressed through similes, metaphors, and music, allowing us to communicate the  unknown  and  unfamiliar  by relating it to the known and familiar. Symbols happen when one thing stands for another. Symbolism plays a role in identity reinforcement. Brands, hobbies, artistic expressions, event attendance, and social connections are symbolic ways of s...

“The word ‘artist’ is not applied to writers as readily as to musicians or sculptors or painters, because the medium in which they work – our language – is used by everyone without any particular thought or regard for economy or form. Language is the common drudge of every sort of experience and it does not enter the heads of most people to use it with any conscious skill or effectiveness.” “But t...