Becoming Credible - November 17, 2008
Tom Wanek believes credibility can be “purchased” by risking one or more of six currencies. The more you put at risk, the more believable your message.
Currencies that Buy Credibility:
1. Material Wealth
Of the six currencies, ...
The New Language of Effective Ads - November 10, 2008
Most women can tell at least one funny story about a tragic first date. In most of these stories, a misguided man spends the entire evening saying,
“Here's an example of how wonderful I am...”
“Let me tell you what I can ...
The Seven Chairs - November 3, 2008
The fifth one ended up in France.
Peter Wenders chooses stories and illustrations for children’s books.
It’s 1954, and today is a day like any other; Wenders sits innocently in his office, believing that people are who they claim to be.
And he assumes they&rsqu ...
Tomorrow's America - October 27, 2008
Humility and Simplicity are the New Frontier
Americans have always treasured independence and achievement. We’ve seen ourselves as fighters who stood tall after every victory, chin up, chest out, shoulders back. And to the victor go the spoils, right? Big houses, big cars, la ...
Thinking Outside the Box - October 20, 2008
Part Two: If You've Got the Nerve.
“The brain has three natural roadblocks that stand in the way of truly innovative thinking:
1. flawed perception
2. fear of failure
3. the inability to persuade others.”
&n ...
How to Think Outside the Box - October 13, 2008
On January 19, 1998, I wrote a Monday Morning Memo titled, Creativity is an Inert Gas. It was published as chapter 89 in The Wizard of Ads. These are a few of its paragraphs:
Moments of emotional recovery are the best t ...
Husbands Who Cheat - October 6, 2008
No, We're Not Talking About Advertising Today
I recently had dinner with a young friend who has been married for about a year. When he said that he and his wife were hoping to have a child, I knew it was time for The Talk.
An older friend gave me The Talk twenty-eight years ago ...
$700 Billion. Greg Saw It Coming - September 29, 2008
And Tried To Warn Us Three Years Ago
Greg Farrell, bottom left, with Bill Aberman, Jeff Sexton, and the rest of the class known as The Midnight Revellers at Wizard Academy in June, 2004
I met Greg Farrell in 1999 while on a book tour promoting Secret Formulas of the Wizard of A ...
Some Things There Are That Last Forever - September 22, 2008
I recently asked a group of 14 men to share a snapshot from their photo albums of random memory, a vivid image, unfaded, a moment inexplicable, captured forever by a long-ago click of that camera in the brain.
Here’s what they handed me ...
Sailing the Sea of Japan - September 15, 2008
Elizabeth was a young Quaker girl who fell happily in love and got married in 1929. “Morgan Vining, my husband, swept my little boat out of the shallows into the sunlit depths of life’s stream and we had almost five years together bef ...
How to Write Ads - September 8, 2008
for Realtors, Used Cars and Free Puppies
Real estate is a business involving mountains of money. It’s also a business in crisis. Put these together and it means ka-ching if you know how to make the phone ring for realtors.
You ought not be surprised that I know how to make ph ...
The Extraordinary People Myth - September 1, 2008
A Monday Morning Memo of the Wizard of Ads
It’s like you’ve asked him to defend his religion; the business owner who believes in growing his businesses through exceptional service delivered by extraordinary people gets testy when you ask him to name a business that has succe ...
A Post-American World? Really? - August 25, 2008
Our American men dropped the baton in the 4x100 meter relay. It was embarrassing. Unthinkable.
A few minutes later our American women did precisely the same thing.
The commentators were brutal, but accurate: “You have to look at the n ...
Dealing with Rejection - August 18, 2008
Advertising salespeople are highly paid because rejection hurts. They told me to rub Zig Ziglar on it, but the sting and the ache stayed with me. I was 20 years old.
The smiley seminar speaker said, “Look in the mirror each morning and ...
The Magic Table - August 11, 2008
A Monday Morning Memo for the Clients and Friends of Roy H. Williams
You walk into a room, empty but for a table carved from crystal. Girdling the table are 11 other persons whose occupations are similar to yours.
You place ten thousand dollars on the table, your gift to the group. Each of the other 11 do ...
Follow the Sound of Bulldozers - August 4, 2008
and the Smell of Fresh Paint
Commercially speaking, where are things happening in your town? Move to where the action is. Follow Best Buy, Home Depot, Starbucks and the other Big Boys who have already done the research.
Nothing draws a crowd like a crowd.
Media ...
Art. Brand. Cultural Icon. - July 28, 2008
It's as easy as A.B.C.
You’re attracted to art
1. when it stands for something you believe in,
2. when it shows you a reflection of your own core values, or
3. gives you a glimpse of your inner face.
You're drawn to a brand for precisely the same reas ...
Feeding Stray Puppies and Kittens - July 21, 2008
Mom’s off-white Formica table with wobbly metal legs had a charred circle on top where I once set a pan that was way too hot. Mom couldn’t afford a tablecloth to cover it, but whenever she suspected a person might have nowhere to go f ...
Where Does America Spend Its Ad Dollars? - July 14, 2008
(Uh-oh, am I about to light an email fire I can't put out?)
Traditional wisdom says, “Advertise in the newspaper. Everyone reads the newspaper. There are lots of radio stations but only one newspaper.”
The problem with traditional wisdom is that it’s usually more tradition than wisd ...
Richie's Red Bus - July 7, 2008
The Monday Morning Memo for July 7, 2008
I’ve known Richie Starkey since I was five. He turns 68 today.
Richie said the only thing he wanted for his birthday was for you to pause today at noon, wherever you are in the world, make a peace sign with your fingers and say with a ...
Radio/Newspaper Smackdown - July 6, 2008
Story begins below image.(Image size reduced to fit this page)
If I told you our experiment was constructed specifically to test radio versus newspaper, I’d be lying. Like most discoveries, we stumbled on this one by accident.
Here’s how it happened: Lifestyle Centers of America is a ...
Superficial Reality - June 30, 2008
Beauty is impossibly thin.
The thinnest human hair is half a million angstroms thick. Typing paper is a million angstroms. Yet the layer of quicksilver that turns plate glass into a mirror is only 700 angstroms thick. It would take 714 such layers to equal the thickness ...
Make Your Mission Statement Ring - June 23, 2008
“The fundamental shortcoming of most mission statements is that everyone expects them to be highfalutin and all-encompassing. The result is a long, boring, commonplace and pointless joke. Companies are all writing the same mediocre stuff.&r ...
Shorter is Better - June 16, 2008
The Wizard's Laws of the Universe, Lesson One
My friend Kary Mullis once said, “Claims made by scientists… can be separated from the scientists who make them. It isn’t important to know who Isaac Newton was. He discovered that force is equal to mass times acceleration. ...
A Comparison of 9 Major Media - June 9, 2008
The Medium is Not the Message
Marshall McLuhan’s famous line, “The medium is the message,” is at best a Japanese koan (ko-ahn.) You know, “What is the sound of one hand clapping,” and all that? I’m sure ...
Back When We Killed for Tennis Shoes - June 2, 2008
MAY 14, 1990 – The cover of Sports Illustrated showed a pistol being shoved into the back of a high school kid. Those were the days when an alarming trend swept this land of purple mountains, majesties, above the fruited plains.
Kids were k ...
Visuospatial Sketchpad - May 26, 2008
(the movie screen in your mind)
Time travel is fun.
Want to learn to do it?
Follow me.
The year is 1608. England buzzes with William Shakespeare.
Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear are performed to rave reviews while 44 year-old William grieves the death of his mother.
...
Sholem Aleichem - May 19, 2008
(SHO-lem a-LAY-kem)
When Samuel Langhorne Clemens began to write, he adopted the pen name Mark Twain, a common shout among riverboat pilots on the Mississippi river.
When Sholem Rabinovich began to write, he adopted the pen name Sholem Aleichem, a common Yiddish gree ...
Horizontal Thinking - May 12, 2008
American education teaches a subject vertically, narrow and deep. And the deeper one plunges into the subject, the narrower it gets. Specialization.
1a. Liberal Arts
1b. Literature
1c. Spanish Literature
1d. Spanish Literature of 1492-1681
1e. ...
Customer Profiles - May 5, 2008
I’ve never seen a business fail due to reaching the wrong people. But if you listen to advertising sales reps, “reaching the right people” will solve all your problems.
And guess who has exactly the right people for you?
T ...
How to Make Business GoodWhen Times are Bad - April 28, 2008
Archetypal Patterns, Part 3
Here's the Pattern: When times are tough and customers are scarce, business owners buckle down and try to become even better at the things they do well. They do this because they trust the Guide pattern, “This has always worked in the past. ...
Archetypal Patterns - April 21, 2008
Part Two. Fractal Self Similarity.Thriller as the Soundtrack to Casablanca.
Today we’re going to fart around a little. You up for it?
Of course you are.
Much has been written about how the 1973 album by Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon, synchronizes with The Wizard of Oz (1939) as a shockingly appropriate sou ...
Archetypal Patterns - April 14, 2008
Part One. Reconciling the Challenge pattern to the Guide pattern
Half your brain sees a hierarchy.
Deductive reasoning is a product of this.
Vertical. Sequential. Objective. Scientific. Hard facts. Details.
"Be for what is."
The other half sees connectedness.
Intuition is a direct result.
Hor ...
The Future of Radio - April 7, 2008
Ten years ago, Eric Rhoads asked me to appear on the cover of Radio Ink in a suit of armor. Since Eric is one of my closest friends and a major supporter of Wizard Academy, I agreed to do it for him.
Since 1998, my Wizard of Ads column has appear ...
Ancient Greeks and Turning Fifty - March 31, 2008
Socrates was right, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
Most of us have moments when we ask, “Am I happy? Is this what I want to do? Am I making a difference? Would I be missed if I were gone?”
In ...
Contemplation - March 24, 2008
Twenty-five years ago,
my friend Richard Exley read me some words I've never forgotten.
Here they are:
If I had my life to live over, I’d try to make more mistakes next time. I would relax. I would limber up. I would be sillier than I ...
Teddy Roosevelt's Daughter - March 17, 2008
“What will he write of us, Cissy, this young man who has taken it upon himself to tell our stories?”
“I’m not a mind reader, Alice.”
“He never met us. He didn’t know us. He has seen us only through ...
Buried Treasure - March 10, 2008
2008 is shaping up to be an unhappy year for most product and service categories.
If your year-to-date numbers are trending ahead of 2007, I salute you.
Today’s Monday Morning Memo is for the remaining 96 percent of American busin ...
Where is Your Blind Spot? - March 3, 2008
Answer: If you knew, it wouldn't be a blind spot.
Accelerate the performance of your business in 2008. Find your blind spot and fix it.
There are 7 common blind spots with 4 common causes.
The most common blind spots have to do with…
1. customer profiling.
What traits do your cu ...
2008: Year of the Beagle - February 25, 2008
Courage... Curiosity... Intuition.
In the biggest news since Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open a beagle has taken top honors at Westminster for the first time in history. Arooo! Aroo-Aroooooo!
In the happy little village where I spend a lot of time, beagles are the symbol of curiosity ...
7-Step Secret of Success - February 18, 2008
How to Get Where You Want to Go
1. See your destination in your mind.
“When you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”
– White Rabbit
2. Start walking.
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.&rdqu ...
Once Upon a Time - February 11, 2008
I was freshly married to Pennie and barely old enough to see over the dash of a car but I wanted to show her the magical places of my childhood, so we saved up enough money for 3 tanks of gas and made the 200-mile drive from Broken Arrow to Ardmore, ...
Clarity is the New Creativity - February 4, 2008
In the language of academics:
The central executive of working memory is the new battleground for marketers. Writers are successfully surprising Broca, thereby gaining the momentary attention of the public, but an absence of salience remains.
In ...
Hello and Goodbyefrom John and Jane Doe - January 28, 2008
January 28, 2008
John and Jane Doe
4321 Happily Thereafter Ave.
Everytown, USA
To the Companies Who Want Our Money,
Yesterday’s selling techniques aren’t working so good. Have you noticed?
We’re betting that your traff ...
2008: Year of Transition - January 21, 2008
In January of 2004 I launched a public presentation: Society’s 40-year Pendulum. Audiences from Stockholm to Sydney to Vancouver to Myrtle Beach will recall my statement, “2003 was the first year in a 6-year transition from the Idealist p ...
The Glass Ceiling - January 14, 2008
Every business that tries to rise to its full height will bump its head on a glass ceiling they didn’t realize was there.
That glass ceiling is created by the business owner’s core beliefs about the customer.
Traditionally, 5 out ...
2008 Business Forecast - January 7, 2008
from high atop Wizard's Tower
America split into 3 camps last year.
Those camps came sharply into focus at Christmas.
1. The Hunker-Down crowd cut back their purchases, uneasy about dwindling dollars and rising debt. Traffic in non-discount retail stores was ...
Gravity of the Edge - December 31, 2007
Whether it exists in the public consciousness or only in my mind, I can't be sure, but there’s an anxiousness about 2008 that gives me pause. We seem to be pushing our way to the edge.
Presidency, economy, war.
What will happen?
...
Actions Speak Louder Than - December 24, 2007
I’m a big believer in the power of words. But when words aren’t backed by corresponding actions, talk is cheap.
Have you ever felt a disconnection between what a company promised you in their ads and what they actually delivered?
...
Time and Chance. - December 17, 2007
Concorde was a child of the 60s. Flying 11 miles above the earth at twice the speed of sound, this jet was literally faster than a rifle bullet. London to New York in 2 hours and 53 minutes.
The Concorde isn’t flown anymore.
During a rout ...
Danger Signals: - December 10, 2007
Sounds of Circling the Drain
These are the noises companies make
as they’re going down the tubes:
1. “Our only problem is traffic.”
Slow traffic is a symptom, not a disease. Look for its cause. WHY is traffic slow? Is it because the public doesn’ ...
Thrive in a Recession. How to. - December 3, 2007
Some people say a recession is coming.
Others say it’s already here.
Experts say the best way to start a recession is to predict one’s on the way. So hey, I’m not predicting a recession, okay? REMEMBER! If a recession sn ...
Wrong Turn Taken on the Straight and Narrow - November 26, 2007
by Roy H. Williams
In the Land of the Way Things Ought to Be
I’m handsome and wealthy and strong and free.
But in the Land of the Way Things Really Are
I’m struggling and awkward, a bit bizarre.
I threw a party, invited my friends
From the Land of ...
American Indian Eloquence - November 19, 2007
reprinted from Magical Worlds of the Wizard of Ads (2001)
America’s Thanksgiving holiday originated when the Pilgrims gave thanks to God for sending them an Indian friend named Squanto. This much you already knew. What you didn’t know is that long before the Pilgrims lan ...
A Tour of Tigers - November 12, 2007
TIGER ONE:
Are you trying to Grow a business, Build a career, Overcome an obstacle?
"Those who expect moments of change to be comfortable and free of conflict have not learned their history." – Joan Wallach Scott
Ferocity is a wondro ...
Ronald, Bill and You - November 5, 2007
I thought Bill Clinton was a good president for the same reason I thought Ronald Reagan was good; both were excellent head cheerleaders.
Their politics, personalities and characters were different, but each had a similar ability to keep things fr ...
Tomorrow Has Come. - October 29, 2007
When The Cluetrain Manifesto was published in 1999, it smacked of silly futurism, like Maxwell Smart’s shoe-phone and Dick Tracey’s TV-wristwatch.
Both of which are now possible.
Likewise, the societal shift predicted by The Cluetra ...
Is Yours a Brand or a Bland? - October 22, 2007
Procedural Memory is the key to your brand being automatically remembered.
Accomplish this through Relevance x Repetition.
Symbolic Thought is how to make a brand meaningful.
Access this by linking the unknown to the known.
Particle Conflict is t ...
Choosing Your Magic Words - October 15, 2007
“I’m a surfer,” she said as she extended her hand.
It almost broke my heart.
Her husband had moved her into a tiny fixer-upper on the tear-stained cheek of an Oklahoma town. With a young child dangling from each of her arms ...
Do You Lean Toward Niche Marketing? - October 8, 2007
Think too deeply about customer profiling and you’ll soon fall into niche marketing.
And the problem with niches is they’re not created equal.
Have you chosen a niche too small?
Reis and Trout inadvertently popularized niches ...
Can You Make It Talk? - October 1, 2007
People are more interesting than non-people.
Mingle a bit of wood, paint and cloth, then drench the pile in sparkling imagination and a new person leaps onto the stage.
Few techniques in communication are as powerful – or as often overlooked – as personification: ascribing human ...
Seeing Yourself Real - September 24, 2007
Paper Roses Have No Fragrance
Most of us are out of balance and suffering for it. We’re either too pragmatic or too romantic.
The pragmatist never stops to smell the roses. “What’s the use? Just get the job done, move onward and upward. Winners never qui ...
An Extremely Very Good Book - September 17, 2007
At first glance it would appear that Vince Poscente and I stand for exactly opposite things.
Vince is all about speed. His mantra seems to be, “You don’t have to choose; you can have it all. And you don’t have to wait, you can h ...
The Monster Under My Bed - September 10, 2007
I learned last week why I’m no good at making small talk. The realization blew my mind.
Pennie and I were sitting in the sun room looking at our computers when she asked, “Did you get the email from Janet?”
“Yes.&rdq ...
Making the Big Money - September 3, 2007
A check arrives in my office and a one-day meeting is scheduled. The business owner arrives on the appointed day.
This is going to be tough. It always is.
To earn my money, I must take the client through 5 steps that are easy to understand but ...
But Isn't Jewelry a Visual Product? - August 27, 2007
I’m sitting in the grand ballroom of the Mandarin Oriental hotel in New York, surrounded by hundreds of people in tuxedoes and evening gowns. So this is a five star hotel, huh? Seven hundred dollars a night. Wow.
The tuxes are jewelers f ...
A Conversation Between Friends - August 20, 2007
Are You Willing to Look Inside Yourself, Friend?
Do you ever ask yourself hard-to-answer questions like, “What am I trying to make happen?” “How will I measure success?” “What is holding me back?”
Rarely do we question our own objectives.
Even m ...
Ready. Angle. Frame. - August 13, 2007
Advertising begins only after you win the attention of your target, a difficult thing to do in this overcommunicated world.
May I suggest you do it like the Great Ones?
When you’re ready to tell your story, choose an angle of approac ...
Do Good Ideas Always Work? - August 6, 2007
The mind is full of clever ideas. But few of them will actually work.
My friend John Young says, “A smart man makes a mistake, learns from it, and never makes that mistake again. A wise man finds a smart man and learns from him how to avoid ...
What Courage Can Do With Six Dollars - July 30, 2007
Brad Lawrence has been a client of my firm for 12 years. During that time, he’s grown his business beyond all expectations.
Mostly because he’s got guts.
Recently, Brad was looking at a sort of charm bracelet for his jewelry store. ...
non sequitur - July 23, 2007
When I was in high school, it was considered a big deal if you could control a steel ball under a piece of glass with a couple of buttons that flipped little flippers. The steel ball would bounce from side to side and bells would ring and lights woul ...
Why Most Ads Don't Work - July 16, 2007
I’ve said many times, “Most ads aren’t written to persuade, they’re written not to offend.”
This goes back to chapter one, “Nine Secret Words” in my first book, The Wizard of Ads. Do you remember the nine ...
M=12-12 - July 9, 2007
I wish I could remember who gave me the book by Howard Rheingold: They Have a Word for It: A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words and Phrases.
(Sigh.) If you ever give me a book, please write me a note in the front of it so I don’t ...
Wisdom of Women - July 2, 2007
I had the great good fortune to be raised by a single mother who was in extremely difficult circumstances: she had no education, no money, and received no monthly child support checks. And these were the June Cleaver/Leave It To Beaver years when it ...
Accelerated Branding - June 25, 2007
Why do some brands connect when others don’t?
Where should you begin when building a brand from scratch?
How does an old brand become new again?
It's just like in the movies.
Have you ever bonded with a character in ...
How to Make Your Ads Sparkle - June 18, 2007
Ninety-nine percent of all ads fail to sparkle for the same reason that most diamonds are dull: They’re overweight.
A perfectly edited ad will shoot points of light across the darkness like a perfectly cut diamond. But rare is the diamond t ...
How to Succeed as a Consultant - June 11, 2007
Step 1: Become extremely good at something. Anything.
“Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will stand before kings; He will not stand before obscure men.” – from the book of Proverbs, chapter 22
Step 2: Push beyond the ...
How Art Touches the Heart - June 4, 2007
How is it that you and I interpret art the same way?
We agree that the musical score to Star Wars feels adventurous and triumphant. But what within the music tells us so?
And there’s something about slow music in a minor key that ...
Are Your Ads Getting Enough Complaints? - May 28, 2007
Part Three in a Three-Part Series
When an ad campaign is producing big results, there will usually be complaints from the public.
When an ad campaign is getting poor results, the public rarely complains.
What makes people hate an ad?
1. It’s hard ...
10 Ways Retail is Changing - May 21, 2007
Part Two in a Three-Part Series
1. Hidden Profit Centers are the new Markup
Low-cost providers such as Sam’s Club and Best Buy are selling “in-store exchange” policies at the cash register to supplement the manufacturer’s warranties they don’t honor. ...
How Retail is Changing - May 14, 2007
Part One in a Three-Part Series
The old assumption in advertising was that the customer didn't know, and wouldn't know unless you told them.
This is no longer a valid assumption. Today's customer enjoys access to information far beyond what any of us saw coming.
Y ...
The Media Is Not the Message - May 7, 2007
"I'm in the furniture business. Which media should I use?"
"I'd like to target people who are afraid of the dentist. Can you recommend a good mailing list company?"
"My uncle uses television ads to attra ...
What's Holding Your Business Back? - April 30, 2007
If I were to ask you what's limiting your growth, you'd likely tell me, "Traffic. If we had more traffic, we'd make more sales. What we need is more traffic."
But traffic is rarely the problem. It's simply the byproduct of a proble ...
The Women In Our Lives - April 23, 2007
I owe my optimism to my mother, a single parent whose ironclad confidence kept my sister and I from ever suspecting how poor we really were. We felt like Mom could do anything. She made us feel like everything was going to be okay.
And amazingly, ...
What Makes Jack a Dull Boy? - April 16, 2007
Filippo Beccari is an Italian dance teacher a long way from home. Hoping to enrich the lives of 62 orphans, he visits the orphans daily and encourages them to move to the music as he hums or plays. The year is 1773.
Three years later Paul Revere r ...
Drifting, Surfing, Drowning and Sailing - April 9, 2007
In Puddles, Swamps, Wells and Oceans
About 10 months ago Mike Metzger flew from Clapham Institute in Annapolis to spend a day with us in Austin.
"You meet 4 kinds of people on the ocean of life," Mike said.
"Those who drift just go with the flow. The wind and the waves control the ...
When Knowledge Isn't Enough - April 2, 2007
Looking to make a change? Remember: transformation happens experientially, not intellectually.
We often receive instruction and agree, "I see what you're saying," but seldom do we actually do the thing we learned. We just agree with it in ...
Money and Art - March 26, 2007
A Wizard Academy Field Trip
She judged us one-by-one as we entered the building. Chin held high, she looked down the ridgeline of her nose like she was sighting along the barrel of a gun. A quiet sniff let us know she did not approve.
I hope to God she doesn't know how t ...
Do Your Words Make Music? - March 19, 2007
Let's Look at Magnetic Meter
Modern schools teach Journalism and Creative Writing.
Study Journalism and you'll write ads that are informative. Study Creative Writing and you'll write ads that entertain. But neither is likely to persuade.
Only one school of writing ...
Magic Words - March 12, 2007
Yes, there are magic words. Do you know them?
Penetrate the shield of customer indifference by shooting verbs from your word-gun. Leap the wall of inattention by putting verb-springs under your feet. Hold the gaze of a wide-eyed audience by sm ...
The Faded Color of Empty Words - March 5, 2007
Advertising isn't working like it did a few years ago. You've noticed this, right?
Most advertisers are convinced that technology is to blame.
TV advertisers will tell you that TiVo and her sister Digital Video Recorders are blockin ...
10 Unusual Ways to Advertise - February 26, 2007
Are you a one-person company with a lunch-money ad budget?
Good News: Time and money are interchangeable. You can always save one by spending more of the other.
When money is tight, spend time.(If you don't have any money AND you don' ...
Will You Embarrass Yourself? - February 19, 2007
Are you anxious to look foolish in front of others?
Will you happily submit yourself to ridicule?
Are you willing to do a thing badly until you've learned to do it well?
Probably not, unless you're the one in five hundred ...
Be For What Is - February 12, 2007
My friend and fellow Worthless Bastard Brett Feinstein occasionally quotes his business partner, Jamie, as saying, "Be for what is." I think I understand what Jamie is saying.
There are basically two ways of seeing:
1. the way things ought to be. ...
Language of Shadow and Silence - February 5, 2007
Silence is a language of context.
White space is silence in print ads.
Visual saturation is its opposite.
Shadow is another language of context.
Silence is seen and shadows are heard in the dim-light quiet of the printed word:
We had co ...
Thought Particles On Broadway - January 29, 2007
You're deeply unhappy with the way things are, but you're not quite sure what to change or who to blame. Depression is the name we give to unfocused anger.
Grief is the name we give to Anger + Sorrow.
Cruelty is the name given to Anger + ...
Peter Pan and Superman - January 22, 2007
Glance at the headline above and you think, "Imaginary characters."
Add angels to that list and the category will blur to "Characters who do good" if you're a believer in angels, but will remain unchanged if you consider them to be imaginary.
...
Symbolic Thought: the Secret to Selling - January 15, 2007
As we learned in last week's memo, a person can't imagine a personal future without assembling it from stored memories of their past.
This means your customer will better understand the new and different when you relate it to the old and f ...
How to Create a Different Future - January 8, 2007
We do not remember days. We remember moments.
The secret to creating a different future is to remember a different past.
Literally.
What do you remember about your past? Do you remember the pain? The frustration? The injustice ...
Method or Madness? - January 1, 2007
Sorting my email, I came upon a survey sent to me by an acquaintance:
I'm about to change the name of my company from The Success Clinic to something else, and I need your help to find the best name.
Which of these do you like best?
...
A Memory of Life - December 25, 2006
I still don't know his last name.
Gille arrived from Michigan in a small jar with his photograph on the lid. His friend had sent an email to Chapel Dulcinea asking if we'd be willing to launch some of Gille's ashes into the breeze that ...
I Am Sleep - December 18, 2006
When Too Big
wedges into a head too small,
When Too Hard
crowds into a life too soft,
When Too Much
has happened to make sense of it all,
I am Sleep.
Let me do my work.
– Roy H. Williams
Have you ever been confronted with an idea Too B ...
Souls of Cities - December 11, 2006
I've created ads for local businesses from coast to coast for nearly a quarter century and I've studied the population of every place for which I've written ads; more than 100 towns in all. And I've presented seminars in an additional ...
Why We Buy - December 4, 2006
Happiness rarely triggers commerce. Unhappiness often does.
Purchases are triggered by dissatisfaction with the way things are. We purchase when we have a need, a desire, an itch to scratch. We want to change our condition, our surroundings, our s ...
Revealing the Vivid Unexpected - November 27, 2006
Part One: The Secret of Saying Too Little
Suffice it to say that last week's memo had precisely the effect I had anticipated.
We'll speak no more about it.
I will not dissect my own writing like a formaldehyde frog in the dim light of your monitor. But I will, for your benefit ...
Live Your Crowded Hour - November 20, 2006
Standing at your bedside, I don't know if you're dead or only sleeping.
Soon our friends will lay pennies on your eyes to pay Charon for your passage. A silly ritual, our friends will do it anyway.
But you were dead long before ...
Your Customer and You - November 13, 2006
Your prospective customer has questions about you. Where's the first place they're likely to look for answers?
Sadly, your wonderful "Big eno