Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

Showmanship  is symbolism, the essence of pageantry and tradition: the sweep of an extended arm with an upraised palm in an expansive gesture; a deep bow with the added flourish of both arms extended to the sides, again with palms turned upward; dramatic emphasis expressed by hopping in place on the balls of your feet – timed precisely to the syllables you speak – pent-up energy tha...

I have a client who has a lot of marketing savvy. A few weeks ago he sent me a list of seven copy points and asked if this was our radio strategy. I spent a lot of time crafting a carefully considered response, so I thought I might share it with you. Perhaps it will trigger a realization or an insight you can use. There’s an equally good chance, however, that you’ll decide I’m wrong. Here’s the re...

The genius of the human race lies in our ability to attach complex meanings to sounds. But not all of these sounds are words. There is a second, wordless language of pitch, key, tempo, contour, interval and rhythm:  music  is an auditory fractal, a 3-dimensional map of a chaotic system. (Chaos, in science, is not randomness but precisely the opposite. It’s a level of order and organizati...

A Partial Dictionary of the Cognoscenti June 8, 2015 Listen A Angle  – the direction from which a writer, speaker, photographer or illustrator approaches their chosen subject. Some angles are more interesting than others. Brandable Chunks  – memorable phrases that become associated with a brand. Innovation Model  – a proven template that allows you to generate a superior result. Bus...

The left side of your brain wants perfect symmetry, but in the words of Francis Bacon 400 years ago, There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.” In chaos theory, this “strangeness in the proportion” is called the strange attractor and it triggers a level of organization so vast the human mind cannot contain it. (Chaos, in science, does not mean randomn...

I’ve met people who say absolute truth does not exist, that all truth is subjective and exists like beauty in the eye of the beholder. I believe those people are sadly misguided. Absolute truth absolutely exists. If you don’t believe me, just ask me again because I am absolutely certain. But we’re not talking about absolute truth today. We’re talking about his very beautiful sister, personal truth...

In 1738, Alexander Pope gave a dog to Frederick, Prince of Wales. Engraved on the dog’s collar were these words: “I am his Highness’ dog at Kew; Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?” Alexander Pope hitched his wagon to Prince Frederick, a rising star. If you’ve seen the Masterpiece Theater television series,  Wolf Hall , you’ll remember a similar conversation between Thomas Cromwel...

Say what people expect you to say. Do what people expect you to do. They will be bored, I promise you. Predictability is the essence of cliché. Surprise is the foundation of delight. Without an element of surprise, there can be no delight. But irrelevant surprise is randomness, the essence of confusion. To gain and hold attention, you must do or say something unexpected, but relevant. This is the...

Throughout the presidency of her husband, Martha Washington hosted a weekly reception each Friday evening for anyone who would like to attend. At these gatherings, men and women from the local community would mingle with Members of Congress and visiting dignitaries at the presidential mansion where they would enjoy refreshments and talk. Martha didn’t do this because she loved to entertain. She di...

When Glenn Gould retired from playing the great concert halls of the world, he climbed aboard a Canadian train and rode it north to the end of the line. During this journey, Glenn recorded the conversations of his fellow passengers and mixed them into a strangely compelling audio presentation called  The Idea of North  (1967). It was the first installment in his  Solitude Trilogy. S...

You’re twelve. Everyone treats you like a kid, but you and I know better, right? You’ve known the difference between boys and girls for a lot longer than anyone suspects. But girls aren’t the mystery you suppose them to be. They’re far more mysterious than that. You’re going to spend the rest of your life trying to figure out just one of them. I remember twelve. You’re about to start getting...

This is an ad you’ll be hearing soon for the world’s fastest-growing franchise for in-home elder care: When  Peter Pan  first appeared in 1904, children didn’t understand the significance of the crocodile that swallowed an alarm clock. But as those children grew older, they realized that  time  is the ticking crocodile that chases us all. Time… we just can’t outrun it. I’m Cath...

Sometimes I think we go through our lives trying to impress an invisible audience called “everyone.” “What will everyone think?” Invisible would be bad enough, but I think “everyone” might also be imaginary. Emil Cioran was probably right when he said, “If we could see ourselves as others see us, we would vanish on the spot.” “We buy things we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress peopl...

The hardest decisions in life occur when we must choose between two good things: Honesty or Loyalty? Justice or Mercy? Frugality or Generosity? These often come into conflict, do they not? If one could remove the vitriol from political debates, these are the six beautiful sisters we would see in a magnificent tug-of-war: Honesty, Justice and Frugality on one side ——– Loyalty, Mercy and Generosity...

You’ve been told, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” But it’s a misquote. What Wolfgang Köhler said more than a hundred years ago – in 1910 to be exact – is that “the whole is  different from  the sum of its parts.” Kohler was famously irritated for the next 57 years by the insistence of writers to turn his statement into something different than what he was saying. B...

If you can’t tell funny stories about embarrassing mistakes you’ve made, you’re not taking enough chances. Are you letting the fear of failure turn you into a narrow guardian of the status quo? Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment. I met a woman when I was a boy – I promise I’m not making this up – who had the power to change the future. She taught me how to do i...

What are you trying to make happen? Is your goal actionable, or is it ambiguous and vague? Do you have an empirical method for measuring daily progress? Empirical:   adjective,  based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation rather than theory or pure logic. I’ll admit that I’m on a bit of a rant today and that the perspective I’m about to share may be nothing more than a quirky,...

The ground moved beneath our feet. There. It did it again. That first tremor was the growing reality of gender equality. The second was the shrinking of mass media. These trends aren’t connected, but they’re both significant. Gender equality is changing the nature of romance. Don’t believe me? Watch any romantic movie from 20 years ago and count the anachronisms, those interactions that belong to...

If success were the result of a formula, we would achieve it more consistently. Every business has its little formulas for success. These formulas, however, are always incomplete because they were reverse-engineered by connecting the dots  after  success had been achieved: the second thing (success) followed the first thing (cable TV ads, or raising your prices, or handing out coupons at...

“Happiness is a choice.” Unhappy people get angry when I say “Happiness is a choice” because most of them have happily assigned their unhappiness to their circumstances, or their past, or an evil someone somewhere. It irritates them when I suggest they can simply  choose  to be happy. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it can definitely be done. Now let’s talk about you. H...

To accomplish the miraculous you must attempt the ridiculous. Before you attempt the ridiculous you must announce it to the world. If you don’t have the courage to announce it, you must at least whisper it in the dark. Because it must be spoken. You’ve got to hear yourself say it. And then you’ve got to take action. Are you sufficiently ridiculous to do this? You’ve never heard of C...

Roughly 10 percent of the American population is worried about having enough money to pay the rent and enough food in the pantry to make it until payday. A good day is when their biggest fear is whether or not the car will start and get them to work. This is called living “hand-to-mouth.” I did it for years. Perhaps you’ve done it, too. Another 10 percent of America h...

I have a theory about people who succeed:  they cheat.  And I’m in favor of it. I saw you recoil from that word a little, so I’ll say it more delicately:  they’re quick to embrace an unfair advantage. Exceptional marketing gives a business an unfair advantage. Businesspeople who embrace this advantage are usually the ones who succeed. Here’s why I call it “an unfair advant...

Do you sometimes  identify with Don Quixote,  the self-appointed knight-errant who set out on his horse, Rocinante, along with his friend Sancho Panza on a donkey, to right the world’s wrongs and change the course of history? He was a delusional, but happy old fart. You and I are not the first to identify with him. John Steinbeck saw  Don Quixote  as a symbol of himself. T...

Although he lived more than 500 years ago, Leonardo da Vinci drew pictures of machines that would not be invented for more than 400 years. His paintings of the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, and the Vitruvian Man are perhaps the most widely recognized images in the world. WIKIPEDIA says Leonardo “was an Italian painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist,...