Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

Our song began in 1971 when Hunter S. Thompson wrote about the end of the 60s. He may as well have been writing about the end of a love affair. “We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark – that pla...

You believe in a lot of things. But what do you believe in the most? Go into the quiet security of your mind, and you will know that you value one of these more highly than the other four. Government Business Science Family Deity “American rates of religious affiliation have plummeted to their lowest point in the past 73 years. And nowhere are they lower than in knowledge-industry hubs like Silico...

Ten years ago, scientists discovered “a geometric, jewel-like object at the heart of quantum physics.” This jewel-like object is called  the amplituhedron  (cool name, right?) and it, “dramatically simplifies calculations of particle interactions and  challenges the notion that space and time are fundamental components of reality.”  * A theoretical phys...

CHAPTER ONE: We assume that every plumber can plumb, right? We assume that any A/C company can make the house warm in winter, cool in summer. We assume that every jeweler can sell us a diamond, and a lawyer must know the law, or he wouldn’t have a license to practice. So how do we choose who to use? “In the 1950s, consumer packaged goods companies like Procter and Gamble, General Foods and Un...

There are only three reasons to have a list of core values.    1:  Inspire and reinforce “on-brand” behavior from employees.    2:  Assist in the orientation and onboarding of new hires.    3:  Inform investors, customers, and other interested parties of what they can expect from you. PROBLEM:  When your core values include aspiratio...

Lately I’ve been trying to explain to uncomprehending faces how the most powerful opening lines are never questions, but statements that trigger more questions than they answer. I am certain those uncomprehending faces are my fault. I fear the idea that I am trying to teach may be bigger than the teacher. I am going to do my best today – one last time – to make it as clear as I can: The job of the...

Regardless of our chosen profession, most of us work with Numbers, Facts, Words, and Hands. You’ve probably never thought about it. I certainly hadn’t, until I was talking with my 13-year-old grandson, Gideon, trying to convince him to elevate the quality of books he reads.  Gideon is an exceptional storyteller and a surprisingly good actor for his age. Based on his natural proclivities, I am...

You are rolling down the road when you wonder, “If I turn off the engine and quit burning fuel, how far can I coast?” If your thought was to save fuel, you have made a costly mistake. The fuel you will burn to regain your speed is a lot more fuel than you would have burned to maintain your speed. This isn’t just a common mistake. It is an “extremely very” common mistake. But you were wondering how...

I recently read a pair of books by Arkady Martine, a writer who is new to Science Fiction.  A Memory Called Empire  (2019) and  A Desolation Called Peace  (2021), each won the Hugo Award for Best Novel. I like Arkady Martine and I like her books. She is an extraordinary storyteller. But she is not yet a great writer. That was not intended as an insult. Dan Brown sold a staggeri...

I want you to: be more productive, reduce your mistakes, shorten your learning curve, and elevate your success. If I am going to help you do these things, we must first look at what’s hiding in your blind spot. Are you ready? Teamwork in Business is Highly Overrated. Teamwork is never the answer. Individual responsibility is the answer. A relay race is really just a series of individual runners, t...

I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about the 2023 Zenith of the “WE,” so today I’ll give you a recap. The 3,000-year pendulum of Western Civilization* is energized by two good things that oppose each other:  Every 40-year “ME” cycle is driven by the hunger for  individuality and freedom of expression. Every 40-year “WE” cycle is driven by  working together for the common go...

Authority can be given to a person. Leadership cannot. People with authority often have no followers. People with followers often have no authority. Leaders require no authority. They say, ‘This is what I’ve decided to do.’ And then they do it. Others see them doing it and decide to follow. On Tuesday I was on the phone to my friend Manley Miller in New Orleans when he said, “No one wants to be a...

We shall operate on the heart, but we shall not use a scalpel and it will not pump blood better when we are done. We have no interest in that muscle in the center of the chest. We will use magic words to operate on the center of emotions. We will change how people act, think, and feel. No one will die, but they will all be changed. Are you in? We will operate  en masse  on hundreds of th...

The pain of loss is psychologically twice as powerful as the pleasure of gain.  When Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky published Prospect Theory in 1979, a generation of advertisers mistakenly began to speak to Pain, and to the fear of Loss. If you frame a choice as “Loss versus Gain,” most people will choose loss avoidance because “losses loom larger than gains.” But what if you want you...

A person unconsciously frames a statement when they choose a perspective, a point of view, or an angle of approach. Verbal counterpunching is nothing more than the reframing of a statement made by someone else. Citizens of Britain said for centuries, “The Sun Never Sets on the British Empire,” to which a citizen of India replied, “The sun never set on the British empire because even God couldn’t t...

There are four basic steps in every good story. Bad storytellers can do steps one and two, but recoil at step three. Good storytellers are willing to do step three. Brilliant Storytellers do steps three and four again and again. 1. Create  a character that people like, believe in, and can relate to. 2. Launch  that character on a hero's journey. 3. Do  terrible things...

If life is a journey on water, with our conscious mind above the waterline and our deep unconscious beneath, and if all the people in the world are drifting, surfing, drowning and sailing on that surface, shouldn’t there be a person on a wooden chair in the sky above the beach watching over it all? Shouldn’t there be a person? And a beach? The people along the sand All turn and look one way. They...

Dr. Nick Grant, a psychologist, Dr. Mike Metzger of Clapham Institute, and Ray Bard my publisher, each taught me about water. Life is a journey on water. Your conscious mind is above the waterline. Your unconscious is beneath. That weightless, magical world below the waterline is fundamentally different from the world of facts, figures and logic that hovers above it. The arts are an invigorating p...

People in museums stop to look at paintings that have people in them, but walk past paintings that have no people. Ninety percent of the books  sold  each year are fiction. Ninety percent of the books  written  each year are non-fiction. The same is true in movies and television: fiction beats non-fiction 10 to 1. Non-fiction is facts and figures, problems and processes, tips a...

I have seen friends walk away from relationships, jobs, and promising careers when all they really needed was some time and space to gather their thoughts, slow their heart rate, and rediscover their joy. I’m not saying you should always, “hang on one more day at a time and wait for things to get better.” I am saying you need to recognize the changing seasons in your life. Bobbie Gentry knew when...

Ten different factors will determine how quickly your ads pay off. Do your ads capture attention or are they easy to ignore? Do your ads speak to a felt need, or are you answering a question no one was asking? Are you a known, trusted, and respected seller? Is the brand you sell known, trusted, and respected? What percentage of the public will ever – in their lifetime ­– purchase a product or serv...

Every good story – and every good ad – begins with a statement that triggers more questions than it answers. “I do not like to turn left when leaving my neighborhood…” “I was a 10-year-old boy holding a flashlight for my father…” “You are sitting in a candlelit restaurant when you hear a strange noise…” The second line of your story is where the narrative arc begins. The narrative arc is the seque...

I hope you are not prone to regrets.  The next time you make the wrong decision, I want you to look back and remember that it seemed like a good idea at the time. You were given incomplete information. The future was unknowable. What is there to regret? Nevertheless, the dull ache of regret came upon me when Kary Mullis died without warning.  I loved Kary for his sense of humor and his w...

Eighty-eight percent of the Fortune 500 companies that existed in 1955 are gone. Poof. Half of them withered because they had a manager in the role of CEO when they desperately needed a leader. The other half were destroyed by a leader when a manager could have held the company together and grown it incrementally. The most important role of a board of directors is to know when their company needs...

Anne Lamott wrote  Bird by Bird,  a marvelous book about writing. In it, she says, “Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious. When you’re conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader. He or she will recognize his or her life and truth in what you say, in the pictures you have...