You’re flying down the highway, looking at the dashed lines flippbooking by, marveling at the sky just taking up all that space, and BAM - no, not an accident, you’re safe in this scenario, but a billboard snaps your brain out of everything. My buddy Robert Lucas saw this billboard and had something like that … Continue reading Would You Look At This Billboard?!
Holy transformation in just a few short years Batman. Laura Belgray stopped back in on the Copywriter Club podcast to talk about all the things that have happened since she was last on a few years ago. I'm focused on the newer one today ("Stepping Into Your Own Voice With Laura Belgray") but both are … Continue reading Podcast Of The Week: I Wanted To Be Laura F’n Belgray
Mitch Hedberg on the art and science of appliance naming: I want to get a job naming kitchen appliances. That seems easy, you know? Refrigerator, toaster, blender - you just say what the thing does, then you add “-er.” Kitchen Appliance Naming Institute: “What’s this thing do?” “It keeps (expletive) fresh.” “Well, that’s a 'fresher.' … Continue reading Mitch Hedberg On How To Name An Appliance
One of the million great lessons from Schitt’s Creek is the emphasis on enjoying the experience and not obsessing over the labeling of it. As David captures perfectly: I like the wine and not the label. Words to live by. ps. and, in the business sense, experiences first - products second. https://youtu.be/gdcmhvLaNUs
Your product or service solves a problem. Great. But, how are you going to get people to use it? The great philosopher Mary Poppins inspired my favorite question: What’s the spoonful of sugar? I see the medicine. I know how it works. I know why it works. I know they need to take it. But… … Continue reading What’s Your Spoonful Of Sugar?
A guy slips and falls on a banana peel. Classic. Well, classic-funny if it’s a fancy looking gentleman with a monocle and a top hat, but kind of sad and distressing if it’s a feeble old man with a cane. Why? Status. Every interaction is a status game. Keith Johnstone breaks it down better than … Continue reading Applying Keith Johnstone’s Status Seesaw
Claude C Hopkins, the godfather of modern marketing whose 1923 book Scientific Advertising is still (shockingly?!) relevant, thought all advertisers should do some form of direct mail advertising first to learn how to fail. Not because they broadly needed to be humbled, but because they needed to be aware of the numbers game that was … Continue reading You’re Not Skillful Until You Know When You’re Lucky
If it works, figure out why and then do more of it. A good marketing idea. A business line. Reading by the window in the morning with a cup of coffee. If it’s good once, it’s worth repeating. If it’s good twice, we’ve got some supporting data. If it’s good three times, well -what if … Continue reading Don’t Cut The Flowers And Water The Weeds
John Maynard Keynes had bars. Emphasis added: The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds. New and novel aren’t hard. Change, adaptation, and evolution, they’re the tricky part. It’s one thing … Continue reading Escaping The Old > Finding The New
Last week I watched a soccer game in pouring rain. Not a drizzle, not a mist, but a “get on board the ark already you beasts” torrential downpour. It was for the US Women as they prepare to go play in the Olympics and I won’t soon forget it. And, that in and of itself … Continue reading The Four Factors That Make A Moment
