Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

When business is slow, the wise business owner wonders what might be wrong with his business. The average business owner thinks only that something is wrong with his advertising. As I said last week, I believe it was advertising salespeople who taught business owners to think this way, saying, “The secret is to reach the right people. You've obviously been reaching the wrong ones.”But who, exactly, are “the right people” to buy a product no one wants?David Ogilvy once asked, “Can advertising foist an inferior product on the consumer? Bitter experience has taught me that it cannot. On those rare occasions when I have advertised products which consumer tests have found inferior to other products in the same field, the results have been disastrous.”William Bernbach echoed Ogilvy's statement. “Advertising doesn't create a product advantage. It can only convey it.”But it was Professor Charles Sandage who turned Ogilvy's complaint into a manifesto: “Advertising is criticized on the ground that it can manipulate consumers to follow the will of the advertiser. The weight of evidence denies this ability. Instead, evidence supports the position that advertising, to be successful, must understand or anticipate basic human needs and wants, and interpret available goods and services in terms of their want-satisfying abilities. This is the very opposite of manipulation.”Yet when traffic is slow, the accusing finger will usually point to advertising.Great ads flow from great products just as poetry flows from deep feelings. Telling a writer to write a great ad for a less-than-great product is like commanding a pregnant woman to give birth to a red-headed child.To know the power of the ads that I might write for you, only two questions need be answered:1. How good are you at what you do?2. How good are your competitors? (Yes, you are being compared to everyone in your category whether you accept it or not. This is why the Wizard of Ads partners never attempt to write ads for a client until they have visited that client's competitors.)The writing of sparkling ads for a dull business is like putting lipstick on a pig. If advertising were all it took to grow businesses to their full potential, the faculty of Wizard Academy would not be so heavily invested in the development of New School sales training, Wonder Branding, internet Persuasion Architecture, Systematic Idea Generation, Online Video Introductions, Radio in the 21st Century, Blogging, and Public Relations.Soon my partner Mike Dandridge will release his new book, The One-Year Business Turnaround: Breakthrough Marketing Without Advertising. In that book, Mike will reveal fifty-two tested techniques that helped him build his electrical supply company to more than one million dollars a month in sales, even though he was challenged by Home Depot on the left and Lowe's on the right. Sound like something you might want to read?Yes, Wizard Academy is investigating growth techniques far beyond traditional advertising. Is it maybe time that your business did, too?Roy H. Williams

For years, advertisers have attempted to target “the right customer” through carefully selected media vehicles. Mailing lists aimed at specific demographic, geographic and psychographic profiles have fallen short so often that a 3 percent conversion rate is considered a big success. Carefully selected TV shows and radio formats have failed to deliver equally as often. And now email opt-in lists are disappointing a whole new generation of advertisers.Not surprisingly, it is media salespeople who are largely responsible for today's overemphasis on “reaching the right customer.” After all, if they told you the truth – that business reputations and advertising results are built on saying the right thing rather than reaching the right person – they would have no leverage to convince you that you need to reach exactly who they're trying to sell you.In your next ad, try targeting through the content of your message rather than through demographic profiles.There are four simple steps in creating a sharply targeted message:1. Choose whom to lose. You can't really know who you're targeting until you can name who you're not targeting. Inclusion is tied to exclusion. The Law of Magnetism is that attraction can be no stronger than repulsion. In the following example, I'm choosing to lose bargain-hunters and posers. (Not that there's anything wrong with bargain hunters or posers. In another campaign, I might target them with great success.) When you're saying the right thing, you'll be surprised at how many people suddenly become “the customer you needed to reach.”2. Gain their attention. If the reader/listener/viewer isn't with you, you're toast. We live in an over-communicated society whose attention has been fractured by too much media. So never assume that people will be paying attention to your ad. Assume instead that you must wrestle their thoughts away from powerful images and distractions that are tugging at their mind. “If the lowest price is all you're after, this isn't the camera for you.” That headline/opening statement attracts the quality conscious consumer to the same degree that it repels the bargain hunter. The only task remaining is for us to explain precisely why our camera is worth the premium price we ask.3. Surprise them with your candor. Traditional hype and ad-speak make today's customer deaf and blind. They can smell hype and phony promises and they're turning away from them in greater numbers every day. So bluntly tell them the truth. Confess the negative or they won't believe the positive. “Another downside of this camera is that it's not the sleekest, prettiest one in its price class. No one is going to tell you how cool your camera looks. The upside is that it takes far superior pictures.”4. Make it make sense. Believability is the key. Tell them how and why your product can deliver what it promises. “The prettiest camera in this price class has a shutter speed of 1/15th of a second. But the shutter speed of the ugly Canon PowerShot S500 is a superfast 1/60th of a second, allowing you to take fabulous photos in low-light situations. Your indoor photos will look rich and vibrant when all the others look dark and grainy. And your nighttime photos will make people's eyes bug out. Beautiful contrast and luminance, even without the flash. This camera can see in the dark. Take a picture of your lover in the moonlight. It will become your favorite photo ever. And that superfast shutter speed is also very forgiving of movement. That's why no one ever replaces their PowerShot S500. Go to your local pawnshop and see if you can find one. We're betting you can't. But you will see several of that “prettier” camera available cheaper than dirt. So if you're looking for a great price on a sleek-looking camera, that's probably where you should go.”See what I mean about choosing whom to lose? Are you beginning to understand the power of candor?I promise that targeting through copy works. But do you have the guts to do it?Learn to target through candid copy and then you can have fun laughing at all the media reps who try to convince you that you've got to reach precisely the audience they're selling.Roy H. Williams

If natural resources determined the wealth of nations, Brazil would be the richest country on earth and Japan would be the poorest. But resources have little to do with building a healthy economy.Prosperity happens when the swimming pool installer sells four pools in one month instead of the usual two and says, “I'm going to buy myself three new suits and a big television.”Then the TV salesman cocks his hat and says, “I'm going to dine out every night this week.”The haberdasher, having sold 3 suits more than usual, says, “I'm going to buy my wife a piece of jewelry, give each of the kids a new toy, and then take them all out for a fine dinner.”The next day the jeweler and the toy-store owner, each feeling good about the future, get measured for new clothes and make reservations for dinner on Friday night.The restaurateur begins thinking about having a swimming pool installed.Economic prosperity is rooted in desire and confidence – both of which are stimulated by advertising.That's why Wizard of Ads, Inc. is planning to open an office in Afghanistan.We Americans are good at convincing each other to buy stuff. It's what we do better than any other nation. Call us naïve, but my partners and I believe that better advertising can radically change the future.Does your future need changing?Get yourself to Austin, Texas, on June 17 for an all-day Free Seminar in lavish new Tuscan Hall on the campus of Wizard Academy, and if you can, try to stay the evening and watch the gaslights flicker to life in Chapel Dulcinea at sunset. It will be a day you'll never forget.See you then.Roy H. Williams

Are you one who believes the reliability of research is assured when the sample size is adequate and the respondents are properly qualified? If so, “research” will likely lead you to some tragic conclusions if it hasn't done so already.The problem with most research is that it's done by mathematical types who have little appreciation of the nuances of language. Ask a witness, “How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?” and they will name a much higher speed than if they are asked, “How fast were the cars going when they made contact?” (This is not a speculative assertion. The full report can be found in Essentials of Human Memory by Dr. Alan Baddeley.)What's missing in most survey writers is an understanding of the illogic that we humans call logic.Neurologist Richard Cytowic was nominated for a Pulitzer in 1982. This is what he had to say in The Man Who Tasted Shapes: “My innate analytic personality had been reinforced by twenty years of training in science and medicine. I reflexively analyzed whatever passed my way and firmly believed that the intellect could conquer everything through reason. 'You need an antidote to your incessant intellectualizing,' Clark had once suggested, 'something to put you in touch with the irrational side of your mind.'… I had never considered that there might be more to the human mind than the rational part that I was familiar with. It had never once occurred to me that a force to balance rationality existed, let alone that it might be a normal part of the human psyche.”When Cytowic began to study this “force to balance rationality” he learned: “…some of our personal knowledge is off limits even to our own inner thoughts! Perhaps this is why humans are so often at odds with themselves, because there is more going on in our minds than we can ever consciously know.”“If a new soft drink came along that you thought tasted better than your current favorite, would you switch to it?”“Which of these two colas tastes better to you?”“Thank you for your opinion. You have been very helpful.”But when New Coke was introduced, America hated it. We were outraged, You're messing with our heritage! New Coke wasn't a genius marketing ploy to remind us of how much we loved old Coke. It was a genuine screw-up, fueled by millions in research.Joey Reiman, a founding partner of the BrightHouse Institute, (one of Coca-Cola's research partners) gave an interview to the New York Times on Oct 26, 2003. “Focus groups are ultimately less about gathering hard data and more about pretending to have concrete justifications for a hugely expensive ad campaign. 'The sad fact is, people tell you what you want to hear, not what they really think,' Reiman said. 'Sometimes there's a focus-group bully, a loudmouth who's so insistent about his opinion that it influences everyone else. This is not a science; it's a circus.'” The article went on to say: “Advertising's main tool, of course, has been the focus group, a classic technique of social science. Marketers in the United States spent more than $1 billion last year on focus groups, the results of which guided about $120 billion in advertising. But focus groups are plagued by a basic flaw of human psychology: people often do not know their own minds.”Ask a person to speculate about what they would do in a particular circumstance and they'll tell you what they truly believe they would do. But when the actual circumstance comes upon them, they do something else entirely. My advice: Quit asking people what they think. Begin watching what they do. Ignore their words; study their actions.Still not convinced that numbers are easily misinterpreted and misunderstood? In a recent Los Angeles Times article Peter Gosselin writes about economists who won the Nobel prize and then made poor personal investment decisions, sometimes even fumbling the Nobel prize money. He then took a look at the investment decisions of the faculty of Harvard University. His conclusion? The financial masterminds don't do any better than the average goober standing in line at the bowling alley.Remember the days prior to the bursting of the dotcom bubble? Everyone was talking about “eyeballs” under the assumption that web traffic could easily be translated into dollars. “It's just a numbers game.” The Internet was ruled by computer programmers and numbers have long been the language of Wall Street. But any time the flaws and foibles and inconsistencies of humanity are removed from the persuasion equation and the chant begins, “Numbers don't lie,” engineers, programmers, researchers and investors will align themselves into a magnificent fool's parade. And then, when the bubble bursts because the fundamental assumption was wrong, they blame it on the introduction of “unforeseen forces.”My partners Jeff and Bryan Eisenberg tried to warn the dotcom world, but no one in those days listened. Jeff and Bryan's heretical notion was that online shoppers are human beings and should be treated as such. “Remove the humanity from the data and you're left with nothing but dangerous digits.” Data worshippers pooh-poohed the warning. Today the Eisenbrothers are regarded as two of the preeminent consultants in the world of online marketing. In fact, if the sales numbers can be trusted, their new book, Call to Action should make the Wall Street Journal bestseller list this week and maybe even the New York Times as well.Let's hope that numbers, this time, can be trusted.Roy H. Williams

Features and benefits, features and benefits, features and benefits. We've polished our pitches to such a degree that we've dimmed our abilities to persuade. The customer is only half listening because the inner self is asking, “What are they not telling me?”Those who have heard my 90-minute presentation about the ongoing evolution of Western communication style are familiar with the problem:1. The fine art of Hype has been perfected and refined.2. Western culture has been submerged in it, held under until every last pore of our souls has been saturated.3. Consequently, we've developed an immunity to “ad-speak,” the language of hype.4. But we don't rage against it. We see the half-truth of hype as a fact of life.5. That's why we're ignoring it.6. And we're ignoring it in greater numbers every day.Do you want to surprise Broca, gain the attention of your customer and win back your credibility? Learn to name features, benefits, and downside. Trust me, the customer is already trying to figure out the downside. Why not just tell them? It's the best possible way to insulate yourself from the backlash when they finally figure it out for themselves.This powerful “tell the truth” technique is easily perverted into just another oily sales trick when the downside you name isn't the real one. As Francois Duc de La Rochefoucauld observed 350 years ago, “We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no big ones.”I'm saying confess the big ones. Knock your customers flat with your candor. Yes, it will cost you a few sales you might otherwise have made. But it will make you far more sales than it costs you.People aren't as stupid as you think.Roy H. Williams

“…And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, 'What are you doing here, Elijah?'” – from the 1st book of Kings, chapter 19When Elijah focused on his own strength, his knees got weak, his hand began to tremble and his heart melted away. But as long as he kept his vision focused on his mission, he was filled with vitality and confidence and did miraculous things.Where is your vision focused?I have endured much questioning about The Quixote Collection at Tuscan Hall. People say, “Wasn't Don Quixote a delusional madman and a laughingstock? Why would you be taken with such a one?”Here is my answer. As long as Don Quixote's heart was filled with Dulcinea he overcame impossible odds. It was only after his friends convinced him Dulcinea did not exist that his heart shriveled within him.Each of us needs Dulcinea, a sense of mission and purpose. For without it, there can be no adventure.An itinerant preacher from Nazareth said, “If your vision is focused, your whole body will be full of light. But if your vision is unfocused, the light that is in you will be darkness. And if the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” One of the ways Mathew 6:22 can be interpreted is this: “If a mission consumes you, your life will be filled with optimism, creativity and stamina. But if no purpose fills your heart, the echo of its emptiness will fill your mind with a mournful song.”I believe that millions flounder and whine and are depressed because they refuse to sell their lives to something bigger than they are. They are sad because they have no purpose. Stephen Crane spoke of the power of purpose this way:A man saw a ball of gold in the sky;He climbed for it,And eventually he achieved it —It was clay.Now this is the strange part:When the man went to the earthAnd looked again,Lo, there was the ball of gold.Now this is the strange part:It was a ball of gold.Aye, by the heavens, it was a ball of gold.– passage 35 from The Black Riders and Other Lines (1895)Your heart, my friend, is the size of a stadium. If you try to fill it with small things – a new car, a vacation, a promotion at work, a bigger home, a stock portfolio – a mournful echo will fill your life. But if you fill your stadium with all of humanity and search for ways to make their lives better each day, you will find yourself in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing in the right way. Serendipity will come to stay.Do you have a purpose outside yourself?Are you climbing for a ball of gold?Roy H. Williams

When your business category is dominated by a single brand and all the other brands put together don't equal them, it's time to create a counter-brand.Counter-branding – business judo – is rare and dangerous. But when you're overwhelmingly dominated, what have you got to lose?Prior to the creation of their “Uncola” counter-brand in 1967, 7-Up had survived for 38 years as a lemon-lime soft drink with the slogan, “You Like It. It Likes You.”Yippee Skippy call the press, a soft drink likes me.As in Judo, the secret of counter-branding is to use the weight and momentum of your opponent to your own advantage. In other words, hook your trailer to their truck and let them pull you along in their wake.The steps in counter-branding are these:1. List the attributes of the master brand. In the case of 7-Up, the master brand was “Cola: sweet, rich, brown.” Everything else was either a fruit flavor or root beer and all of those put together were relatively insignificant. “Cola” overwhelming dominated the mental category “soft drinks.”2. Create a brand with precisely the opposite attributes. To accomplish this, 7-Up lost their lemon-lime description and became “The Uncola: tart, crisp, clear.”3. Without using the brand name of your competitor, refer to yourself as the direct opposite of the master brand. 7-Up didn't become UnCoke or UnPepsi as that would have been illegal, a violation of the Lanham Act. But when you're up against an overwhelming competitor, you don't need to name them. Everyone knows who they are.Let's look at a current example: Starbucks. Notice how I didn't have to name the category? All I had to say was “Starbucks” and you knew we were talking about coffee. That's category dominance.In the February 2005 issue of QSR magazine, Marilyn Odesser-Torpey writes about Coffee Wars, opening with the question, “Starbucks will certainly remain top dog among coffee purveyors, but who is next in line?” A little later we read, “Many of the competitors in the coffee segment are Starbucks look-alikes; if you take the store's signage down, it would be hard to tell the difference.”Traditional wisdom tells us to (1.) study the leader, (2.) figure out what they're doing right, (3.) try to beat them at their own game. This strategy can actually work when the leader hasn't yet progressed beyond the formative stages, but when overwhelming dominance has been achieved, as is currently the case with Starbucks, such mimicry is the recipe for disaster. Are all competitive coffee houses forever doomed to occupy the sad “me-too” position in the shadow of mighty Starbucks? Yes, until one of them launches a counter-brand.To determine what a Starbucks counter-brand would look like, we must first break Starbucks down into its basic brand elements:1. Atmosphere: quiet and serene, a retreat, a vacation, like visiting the library. Bring your laptop and stay awhile. They've got wi-fi.2. Color Scheme: muted, romantic colors. Every tone has black added.3. Auditory Signature: music of the rainforest, soft and melodious4. Lighting: subdued and shadowy, perfect for candles or a fireplace.5. Pace: slow and relaxed. This is going to take awhile, but that's part of why you're here.6. Names: distinctly foreign and sophisticated. Sizes include 'Grande' and 'Venti.' (No matter how you pronounce these, the 'barista' will correct you. It's part of the whole Starbucks wine-bar-without-the-alcohol experience.)Counter-brands succeed by becoming the Yin to the master brand's Yang, the North to their South, the equal-but-opposite 'other' that neatly occupies the empty spot that had previously been in the customer's mind.Here's what a Starbuck's counter-brand would look like:1. Atmosphere: energetic and enthusiastic. Running shoes instead of bedroom slippers. Leave the car running because we won't be here long.2. Color Scheme: bright, primary colors such as are found in athletic uniforms, against a background of white or off-white.3. Auditory Signature: anything with a driving beat, faster than a resting heart-rate. Dance music.4. Lighting: dazzling, like in a sports arena.5. Pace: driven by the music, on the move. Caffeine!!!6. Names: straightforward and plain. Descriptive, rather than pretentious.HOW IT MIGHT SOUND ON THE RADIO: Most people think to get a fast cup of coffee you have to settle for fast-food coffee …or worse…convenience store coffee. And to get a good cup of coffee you have to stand in line for 20 minutes at some snooty coffeehouse where things can't just be medium and large, but have to be 'Grande' and 'Venti.' At JoToGo we serve really good coffee, really fast. We're the original drive-thru espresso bar serving all your favorite premium coffee drinks at lightning speed. So when you're on the go, get a JoToGo. No snooty attitude here, just fabulous coffee fast.No matter how big a brand might be in the public's mind, there's always an open spot for the exact opposite. When the circumstances call for it, be that opposite. Create a counter-brand.Roy H. Williams

People have said for decades, “Word-of-mouth is the best kind of advertising. That's the best kind: word-of-mouth.” You hear this so often when you sell advertising that my friend Bob Lepine used to joke about opening The Word of Mouth Advertising Agency. He said he was going to hire people to sit at bus stops and ride the elevators in tall buildings and say to people, “Have you tried that new restaurant over on Fifth Street? It's GREAT!” The funniest part of Bob's idea is that it probably would've actually worked.The power of the buzz – word-of-mouth advertising – lies in its credibility. But the only way to create buzz is to rock a person's world so hard that they can't help but talk about it to their friends.I'm going to try to do that today.Ray Bard of Bard Press, the publisher of my bestselling Wizard of Ads trilogy, looked at the new hardback book about to be released by Wizard Academy Press and wrote me an email. (I was walking out the door to meet Ray for lunch when a boxful of advance copies arrived from the printer. On impulse, I grabbed one for Ray.) These comments by email were completely unsolicited:RoyGreat to see you and catch up yesterday. And, thanks for the new Wizard Academy Press book. I usually refrain from providing comments about books after they're published (I've made enough mistakes myself over the years) but there is one issue that may deserve attention.When I got home last night I gave the book a quick look. It felt good in the hand and the inside contents looked good. Although the title sounded like a political book and provided no information about the content, I know that it can get by as it is. The other, more difficult issue, is the price. When I first saw the $13.95 I thought it was a mistake but noticed it was printed in two places. The last time 300 page hard cover business books sold for $13.95 was probably 30 years ago. The retail price is a statement of what you think the value of the book is. When most similar business books are selling for twice as much today, you can see the message this sends.If the publisher is pursing a strong merchandising strategy with lots of face out retail space I recommend pushing the retail into the “value” category. Unless you have a new distribution effort, I would not recommend it for this book. And, the $13.95 is way beyond “value” pricing.For what my opinion is worth, I would have priced it at $30. and sold it at $20 for special customers. I think you can see the difference in psychology.Again, I regret bringing this up now, but I know the book will be used in the company's marketing efforts. And, as it is, the price sends just the opposite message you want.RayRay Bard is America's most successful publisher of business books. He is responsible for putting two of my books on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list and one on the New York Times list, so I listen carefully to what Ray says.He's right. Thirteen ninety-five is way too cheap for a 314 page hardback containing this kind of detailed information about how to make online marketing actually work. These pages are chock full of little-known techniques for improving online marketing results. More than a dozen Fortune 500 companies have paid the authors huge amounts of money to learn this stuff. That's why our plan all along was to price the second printing at 25.95. But this first printing exists only to create a buzz. That's why we're giving you 2 additional copies for each one you buy at just $13.95. We know you'll give them to friends. We know your friends will be rocked. We know your friends will talk about it to their friends. It's all about the buzz and this book contains some fabulous honey. By the way, shipping is free if you live in the US, so you'll have a grand total of only 4.65 per book in each of your 3 hardback copies.Wizard Academy Press is gambling that the information contained in this book will give you a heady buzz and be worth mentioning to your friends.I'll let you know in a few weeks how the experiment turns out. In the meantime, why not get 3 copies headed your way?Roy H. Williams

Standing inside Chapel Dulcinea recently, I looked up to see the great ribs beneath the roof beams above me and thought, “Jonah in the belly of the whale.” Do you remember the story? It's only four short chapters, a 5-minute read. The next morning, Princess Pennie went back to Dulcinea with me and we sat together while I read the book of Jonah aloud. Somehow, it felt like the right thing to do.Let me summarize it for you: Running from God, Jonah boards a ship headed in the opposite direction from the place he knew he was supposed to go. (Have you ever rebelled, brazenly, from what was expected of you by someone else?) And then a storm came. (Somehow they always do.) Thrown overboard, Jonah is swallowed by “a great fish” in whose belly he reevaluates his priorities and finds his soul again. Jonah's time of reflection and prayer in the belly of the beast is a marvelous thing to read. The fish then vomits Jonah unceremoniously onto the beach. (Ever been unceremoniously barfed by circumstances following a storm that hugely kicked your ass? Me too.) Now this is where the story gets interesting to me: Jonah, having survived the crisis, finally does what he should, but with a really bad attitude. The tale ends with Jonah being unbelievably petty and small, a pale shadow of the giant he had been during his time in the belly of the beast.Evidently, I'm not the only person who can go from high thoughts to low thoughts in a very short period of time. And neither are you.Interestingly, Jonah's pendulum swing was the inverse of Elijah's. Whereas Jonah went from high thoughts in the belly of the beast to low thoughts during his mission, Elijah went from high thoughts during his mission on the top of Mount Carmel (where he called down fire from heaven to burn up an offering to God in front of a huge crowd of witnesses,) to low thoughts immediately after his triumph. “Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day's journey into the desert. He came to a broom tree, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. 'I have had enough, LORD ,' he said. 'Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.' Then he lay down under the tree and fell asleep.” When Elijah awakened, he went to spend some time in a cave at Mount Horeb. Read the 19th chapter of 1st Kings and you'll recognize another belly, another whale.Every caterpillar must go into the cocoon if she will spread her newfound wings.Some will find Chapel Dulcinea to be the belly of the whale, a place for reflection in times of crisis. Others will find Dulcinea to be the cave at Horeb, a place to regain their balance after riding an emotional rollercoaster. For thousands of young couples, Dulcinea will be the cocoon from which will emerge the two-winged butterfly of marriage. But always it will be a place of transformative change.No one but Pennie knew that I was contemplating the book of Jonah and the value of reflection, so it came as a soft surprise when Bryan Eisenberg forwarded to me a quote he thought I might find interesting: “The Internet radically redefines a person's psychological relationship to time and space. Attention is riveted on what is tangible, useful, instantly available; the stimulus for deeper thought and reflection may be lacking. Yet human beings have a vital need for time and inner quiet to ponder and examine life and its mysteries… Understanding and wisdom are the fruit of a contemplative eye upon the world, and do not come from a mere accumulation of facts, no matter how interesting.” – Pope John Paul II, Sunday, May 12, 2002I hope you don't mind that I chose to share with you something less tangible and instantly useful this week.Come see us.Roy H. Williams

Hi Roy,Thanks for the mention in the MMM today. It never ceases to amaze me the buzz something like that creates.Reading it also reminds me of the other conversation that took place at the same time, when you and Dave were talking about how a chef reduces the sauce to intensify the flavour and how that process can be related to writing. That conversation adds clarity to today's argument raging in the US about 60's vs. 30's.CheersSteveThe “other conversation” mentioned in this email from my partner Steve Rae was with Dave Martin, the Academy graduate and friend in whose restaurant we were dining. Following my discussion of paint with Bob Shrubsall, Dave and I began discussing how impact grows when it's concentrated into less of the carrier vehicle. This is the secret of perfume, reduction sauce, and the edge of an axe. But just as sharpening an axe or simmering the water from sauce takes time and patience, editing words from descriptions is not a task for the anxious or twitchy.Easy reading is damned hard writing.Think of this principle as The Law of Refined Essence.I've always been a fan of David Ogilvy and J. Peterman, two of the great masters of evocative description, and both were advocates of long and colorful copy. These men were legends in their day but I believe that day is fading. The rules of communication are shifting beneath our feet.Haven't you noticed?We're entering an era of stimuli bombardment, visual ecstasy, sound bites, the micro attention span. A committed reader is a rare bird.Over-communication has accelerated beyond critical mass and the resulting explosion has fragmented the public mind.So the new rule is to say what you've got to say. And say it hot.Speaking to authors, Elizabeth Spencer said, “Don't overwrite description in a story – you haven't got time.” I believe her advice rings truer today than ever.What do you believe?Roy H. Williams