Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

“Hello ladies. Look at your man. Now back to me. Now back at your man. Now back to me. Sadly, he isn’t me. But if he stopped using lady-scented body wash and switched to Old Spice, he could smell like he’s me. Look down. Back up. Where are you? You’re on a boat with the man your man could smell like. What’s in your hand? Back at me. I have it. It’s an oyster with two tickets to that thing you...

A fortress protects you and makes you feel safe.  A strongly held belief is a fortress. It protects your view of reality. You defend your fortress when you feel it’s under attack. But is every strongly held belief true? The sincerity of the believer does not determine the truth of the belief. Don’t panic, I’m not attacking your fortresses. I have no idea what you believe but I do kn...

I’m always stunned, slack-jawed, big-eyed and stupid when a person chooses to do what obviously won’t work. I stand there in a daze, awed by the fact that Jesus can love such idiots as the human race. Maybe I overreact. My first big-eyed moment happened when I was 21 years old. I was a sales rep in a radio station back before we learned to call ourselves Account Executives. Yes, I’m talk...

And How Will You Measure Progress? Violent crime in America declined each year from 1993 to 2004. Then just about the time the iPod became popular in 2005, violent crime began trending upward. CONCLUSION: iPods cause violent crime. Or at least that was the conclusion of a 2007 report published by The Urban Institute, a research organization based in Washington. (I swear I’m not making th...

Moses was 40 years old when he tried to lead Israel out of Egypt by the strength of his own arm. He failed, then ran from the anger of Pharaoh like a little girl. But who can blame him for trying? He was, after all, the only Israelite who lived in the palace under the protection of Pharaoh’s daughter: “I’m unique. I’m special. I was born for this.” Moses at 40 was brash, confident, full of hi...

Even When They're Wrong Christian Jürgensen Thomsen was a young man interested in archaeology so when the Danish government of 1816 needed someone to climb into the attic of Copenhagen’s Trinitatis Church and sort through the rubble that had collected there, Thomsen was their man. Upon entering the attic, Thomsen reported random items in “dust and disorganized disarray, hidden away in chests...

Frankly, I Cheat. You Can, Too. I became an advertising salesman so I could buy groceries. A college dropout with no financial safety net, I installed aluminum guttering on houses during the day and changed reel-to-reel tapes in an automated radio station at night. Our format was radio preachers who needed your money to pay for the airtime we sold them. We were the number 23 station in a city...

Guilty Pleasure February 1, 2010 Listen A January 27, 2010: It’s weird when you think about it: Apple releases the iPad just as Salinger breathes his last. It feels like the ending of a play. J.D. Salinger and Jack Kerouac were the tortured voices that led us into forbidden places in our minds. We followed them, spellbound, as they sauntered into dark rooms we would never have entered alone....

In 1969, spending time with your friends meant piling into a car and driving around. Every town had a strip called “the drag,” a place to see and be seen as you cruised back and forth at 20 miles an hour. It's how you made contact. And when you and your friends weren’t in your car, you were sitting on the hood of it in a parking lot, talking to the people sitting on the hood of the car next t...

Today's memo is a long one But worth reading if you want to make money. If you knew it was there, they wouldn’t call it a blind spot. Hidden within your blind spot is your limiting factor, the thing that holds you back and limits your success. Find your blind spot and stare your limiting factor in the face. Acknowledge the reality of it. Then decide whether or not you want to overcome it. * That’s...

Transactions can be immediate or transactions can happen over time. The purchase of a “Flashing Blue Light Special” is an immediate transaction. I give you something. You give me something. Now we’re done. Transactions like these indicate an Exchange Market where customers are in Transactional shopping mode. Make no mistake about it: Big things can happen fast when you make the right offer in...

The Full Plate Diet is  Everywhere You’re about to begin seeing The Full Plate Diet everywhere you look; bookstores, grocery stores, airports, wholesale clubs… everywhere. This is an interesting story. I think you’ll enjoy it.  Especially since you’re a big part of it.  Read on. Ray Bard served as the first chairman of Wizard Academy, a 501c3 nonprofit educational organization...

Read to the End and Find a Business Application It’s entirely possible that today’s memo will make you think less of me.  Maybe not. We’ll see. People fall into 4 categories in my mind: 1. People I owe. 2. People I know. 3. People Invisible. 4. People I must fight. If you object to people being put in categories, please keep in mind I said we’re talking about the world inside my head, no...

Mini Bikes, Tape Recorders, Leisure Suits and Yellow Pages The Las Vegas Hilton, 2003: The stagehand said, “This is the stage where Elvis appeared when he played Vegas.” He was helping me set up to speak to the managers of all the local, county and state fairs in the English-speaking world. When my stage buddy said we were good to go, the floor attendants opened the doors and the cr...

Ask the wrong question and you will get the wrong answer Most businesses target an imaginary customer because someone – probably an advertising salesman – once asked, “Who is your customer?” Ask any businessperson, “Who is your customer?” and he or she will likely answer with a singular customer profile. Something like, “My customer is a career woman between 28 and 44 years old, college educa...

You want an example? Romulus Whitaker  is saving the rainforest in Tamil Nadu, and with it, dozens of species of animals. The problem is  complex,  but so is Romulus Whitaker. Tim Bauer  is fighting air pollution in the Philippines with a 2-stroke cylinder head that reduces hydrocarbon emissions by 89 percent. Thousands of engines must be retrofitted. The work is  rugged,...

It's beginning to look not like Christmas They say you can never go home again, just like you can’t step into the same river twice. Things change. Have you ever been to a class reunion? “Cigars had burned low, and we were beginning to sample the disillusionment that usually afflicts old school friends who have met again as men and found themselves with less in common than they had believ...

Tom Hennen has a line in his poem,  The Life of a Day,  that says, “We examine each day before us with barely a glance and say, ‘no, this isn’t one I’ve been looking for,’ and wait in a bored sort of way for the next, when we are convinced, our lives will start for real.” That line is a little bit frightening because you read it and realize you’re guilty. You’ve been waiting fo...

Peg the Needle on the Relevance Meter If You Want to See Results Ads are often written under the assumption that we can get people to care about things they don’t really care about. But this approach rarely succeeds. Traditional ad-think says: 1.   Target the right people 2.   Leverage the right media (visual media for visual products, etc.) 3.   Use cr...

Big Brother is Alive and Well  My son’s cell phone rang. He answered, “Hello?” “I’d like to speak to Booty Williams, please.” “This is Booty.” [long pause] “Is your name really Booty Williams?” “That’s right. Booty Call Williams.” “That’s  awesome .” The call was from a telemarketing firm that had purchased my son’s contact information from a magazine to which he had subscribed. My...

Back when I was an advertising salesman, business owners would often dismiss me by saying, “I believe in word-of-mouth.” Then with a smug, self-satisfied look, they’d say it again, as though the words made them feel fine and righteous. “Word of mouth is the best form of advertising.” I almost opened  The Word-of-Mouth Advertising Agency  in 1984. My plan was to hire people to ride u...

In 1869, Monet was painting at La Grenouillere when he realized that  the color of an object is modified: 1. by the light in which it is seen, 2. by reflections from other objects, and 3. by contrast with juxtaposed colors. Monet translated his observations into the glowing phenomenon we know as French Impressionism. Remember: “The color of an object is modified by the light in whic...

Business midgets focus on profit margin, “I can sell these for double my cost!” But business giants focus on turn, “How many more would I sell if I lowered my price?” Retailers call it “inventory turn.” Restaurateurs call it “table turn.” Either way, it’s a measurement of how efficiently a business uses its assets. Inventory turn tells the retailer how many times he sold and replaced his inve...

Every life has a scoreboard and how you choose to keep score is up to you. How are you measuring success? I’ve known men and women who measure success by their ability to attract the opposite sex. You’ve met these people, too, haven’t you? Some people measure success by their ability to inflict pain in the lives of others. Bullies, vandals, website hackers, internet virus creators and bad pol...

If it takes money to make money, how does one make money when he has no money at the start? A person without capital has nothing to leverage but his or her time. This is why millions of Americans wear the handcuffs of hourly wages. When I was 14, my life sold for $1.60 an hour. At 18, an hour in the life of Roy H. Williams was selling for three dollars and thirty-five cents. People all a...