Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

My computer-programmer friend Akintunde used to spend his Sunday afternoons with Pennie and me. When my audio-book  Thought Particles: Binary Code of the Mind  was released, Akintunde took home a copy and listened to it several times. We had long talks about it. Then he was whisked away to Kyoto, Japan, to create the next generation of video games for some of the world's most powerful ga...

Thought Particle Technology has Arrived I consider Pandora.com to be the first commercial application of Thought Particle technology. Have you allowed Pandora to read your mind yet? Pandora.com is a streaming music service crafted by a couple of hundred really serious music experts whose ideas about music are much bigger and more divergent than the mere idea of “format” or “genre.” Tell Pandora wh...

I like to think God said, “Let there be…” and then paused to think for a moment. Suddenly it came to him, “Light!” If you accept the book of Genesis, then God is a creator by nature. And he created us in his image, little miniatures of himself. That means we're creators by nature, too. Creativity is our heritage. It's in our DNA. When we create, we're being Godlike. We're doing what we're supposed...

Having Arrived at the End and Forgotten to Live 2005 was an amazingly bad year for Pennie and me. Her mother died, my father died, and then we were brought horribly low by a financial surprise with two commas to the left of the decimal point. There was a period of weeks when it looked like all would be lost. The business, the school, our home, the cars, everything. For days at a time my eyes would...

Can you be in Austin on Saturday, April 22? SEMINAR:  We're planning a writer's seminar in palatial Tuscan Hall featuring Chris Maddock, the rarely seen teacher of  Advanced Wordsmithing , and Jeff Sexton, the instructor of that always sold-out curriculum,  How to Write Powerfully and Clearly.  Also joining us will be David Freeman, teacher of  Beyond Structure , L.A.'s mo...

How often are you conscious of the fact that Earth, only Earth, is buried beneath an ocean of air? We, the fleas that dance on the skin of Mother Earth, live in this dry ocean. We use it to hold our airplanes off the ground. We blow out candles with it. We suck it in and out of our lungs like a fish pulls water through its gills. And we almost never think about it. Akintunde, my friend from botani...

Do you remember when America watched awards shows? If you were somehow unplugged and didn't receive the newsflash, the combined strength of Paul McCartney, Madonna, U2, Mariah Carey, Coldplay, Faith Hill and Jay-Z wasn't enough to swing the hammer and ring the bell during this year's  Grammy Awards.  A frail 17 million watched these legends read their cue cards while a muscular 28.3 mill...

This week I didn't feel like writing about advertising or business or leadership or anything else an ambitious soul might find useful. So if you're in a vibrating hurry with far too much to do, right here would be the place to stop reading. The DELETE button is sitting there, twitching, anxious for you to bang it. There's nothing in today's note that would do a busy person like you any good. Unles...

It's no secret that stronger ads generate faster growth. But with each higher level of awareness comes an increase in complaints: “I'm sick of hearing your ads.” TRANSLATION: “It makes me mad that I can't ignore you.” “Your ads don't sound professional. They're not polished and smooth.” TRANSLATION: “It makes me mad that your ads stand out.” “I'm offended by your ads and I'll never do business wit...

The American Dream America is a democracy and we believe in free enterprise. Let's look at that for a moment: Democracy is majority rule. Groupthink. “United we stand, divided we fall.” But the key to business –  free enterprise  – is to have an absolute dictator. In America's system of free enterprise, the person whose money is at risk is the person who gets to decide. Wrong or right, f...

America has been flattered by advertising (“Because you deserve it”), misled by ads (“Lowest prices anywhere”), hyped by ads (“While supplies last”), and lied to repeatedly (“Guaranteed!”). The result of all this misinformation is a growing numbness to ad-speak. We're becoming deaf and blind to it. With effortless ease we shut it out of our minds. Why are advertisers happy when their ads sound lik...

It takes 1,800 electrons to equal the mass of a single proton. Protons and their cousins – neutrons – make up 99.95 percent of the mass in the universe. Yet it's the electrical charges of the seemingly insignificant 0.05 percent – those tiny orbiting electrons – that hold our universe together. Commitment. Purpose. Focus. Passion. These are the electrons of Happiness. Orbiting our actions. Binding...

It hit me.  “I've become an eavesdropper, listening to the conversations of strangers.” It's 5:00AM and I'm sitting at the bar of an all-night café on the wrong side of town eating a three-dollar breakfast, listening to the smelly, funny stories of downtrodden people who know each other well. Their sparkling banter gives me a glimpse into problems I'll never touch, victories I'll never celebr...

The bottom-rung loser in one town can move to another town and often become the king of his category. All it takes is weak competitors. I've seen it happen a dozen times. Whether you dominate your marketplace won't be determined solely by the strength of your advertising.  It will be determined partly by the strength of your competitors. How good are you at what you do? How good are they? The...

I was in the shower when my cell phone started ringing. Pennie answered it for me. It was my partner Jeff Eisenberg. Dripping, I took the phone. “Yo. Jefferson.” “I'm sending you an article from  The Economist.  It's something I've heard you talk about a hundred times.” “What is it?” “You know who Peter Drucker is?” “Management guy.” “Yeah. The story tells how his bestselling book, the o...

Great ads can be either product-specific or store-specific. Bad ads are generally category-specific. And then there are franchise ads. Franchise ads  build the master brand. The hope of every franchisee is that the ads provided by the franchisor will generate enough brand magnetism to pull customers into their store. Due to the fact that a franchisor can afford to create a higher quality ad c...

People tell me they want to learn to think outside the box. No problemo.  The secret is to stay out of the box to begin with. You crawl into the box when you think about your problem and wrap its known obstacles around you. So quit. Focus instead on an interesting saying, quote, or phrase unrelated to your problem. Crawl inside that bit of wisdom and look at your problem from this cozy new pe...

Determination is emotional, a moment of intense focus with clenched jaw and the visualization of a mission accomplished. The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate, He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate; And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go, And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow. Oh, somewhere in this favored land the...

Businesses don't fail due to reaching the wrong people. Businesses fail when they say the wrong things. And they say the wrong things when they believe what the public tells them. Conduct a survey. Ask the public to describe in detail the kind of place they'd like to shop. Then build that place, exactly as described, and see if they ever show up. Experience tells us they won't. We'll use furniture...

Finances. Relationships. Health…  the tall monsters we face in life's dark ocean when we awaken underwater, alone in the night, not knowing what to do. Ever been there? People respond to deep crisis in different ways. There are: 1. Handwringers  who talk about the problem to anyone who will listen.  “You just won't believe what I'm going through.” 2. Dark worriers  who internal...

I did a bad, bad thing. Last week's memo ended too abruptly.  “Yes, selling to men can be very easy. But how does one sell to women? Ah. That is a different question. – Roy H. Williams”  The phrase,  “sell to women?”  was hyperlinked to additional information. Judging from the record number who clicked that link, What Women Really Want remains one of the great, unsolved mysteri...

“The whole nature of man presupposes woman, both physically and spiritually. His system is tuned into woman from the start.”  – Carl Jung,  Two Essays in Analytical Psychology “What can a man say about woman, his own opposite? Woman always stands just where the man’s shadow falls, so that he is only too liable to confuse the two. Then, when he tries to repair this misunderstanding, he ov...

The price of making a powerful statement is cheap compared to the cost of ads that don't work. So make a statement that counts. This is the best advice I can give you. I'm not talking about making a grand and sweeping claim, such as, “Lowest prices anywhere. We won't be undersold.” No one believes hype anymore. I'm talking about a statement that is bona fide, no loopholes, easy to experience. And...

We're building a school of the communication arts. Do you want to come along? Oh, the questions we'll answer together! The interesting things we'll find! We've built a chapel where we can think big thoughts. And  a grand auditorium  where we can exchange ideas. The things we'll talk about! We need only a place to lay our heads when day is over and twilight darkens and campfires dim and t...

How many months has it been since you went looking for information in the yellow pages? How many minutes has it been since you asked your favorite search engine? I think you just answered the question about whether or not your local business needs a website. Without a doubt,  websites  are the most overlooked vehicle of advertising for small, owner-operated businesses. Every retailer nee...