Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

“Bonding” is falling in love with a company, a product, a spokesperson, an outlook, a belief system. This bond of love inevitably manifests itself in a tangible way. And then again. And again.A bonding ad is about the customer.A direct response ad is about the offer.Direct response ads trigger immediate action.Bonding ads do not.The results of a direct response ad can be measured immediately. The public either buys what you’re selling or they don’t. This is how you know whether or not the ad is working. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to build your company on direct response.Bonding ads build customer loyalty.Direct response ads do not.Hi Roy,I have a client who started his radio campaign a few months ago running a low frequency schedule. He is already starting to see the success of his campaign both through website visits and actual inquiries from potential clients. In the beginning his creative was written by us and read by him. He sells life insurance. My client is now concerned with measuring the effectiveness of each ad. He is trying to determine which ads are generating the most website hits and inquiries. He has stated:“With any direct response ad the trick is to determine wording based on the effectiveness of the ad. If the testimonials are driving the most hits, we should be pushing those. I want every campaign I do to be measurable. Without being able to measure each ad’s effectiveness we are just shooting in the dark. If I look at my website hits for instance, I can see that yesterday I only had 7 hits but on July 8th I had 39. What ad played on July 8th to garner such a response?”Any advice on how to explain why his radio campaign is effective without needing to measure each individual ad for its effectiveness?”JonJon, the success of a direct response ad is determined by the attractiveness of the offer made to the customer. What offer can this life insurance salesman make? Keep in mind that the offer must be compelling enough to get a person to take immediate action.This insurance agent’s best hope would be to use radio as a promotional vehicle for content marketing. What insights, solutions or valuable information might he publish on his website and talk about in his radio ads that would cause listeners to immediately visit his website to read it? Without this kind of “content” as bait, his direct response campaign on radio is likely doomed.Business people are attracted to direct response ads because they want their advertising to function like a gumball machine. “You put in your money and you crank the handle and out come the results.”In theory, direct response marketing is tidy and scalable and predictable. “Put in a penny and you get one gumball. A nickel gets you five gumballs. Give it a dime and ten gumballs emerge. A quarter? You guessed it: twenty-five gumballs.”The problem is that this gumball machine called “advertising” never functions quite like it should. Sometimes you crank the handle and get a huge gumball. Sometimes you get a tiny one. Sometimes you get nothing at all.Even when you’ve found an offer that generates predictable, scalable results – such as the response to that “content marketing” offer we described earlier – you’ll find these results will erode over time. The longer you keep pumping coins into that gumball machine, the less well the machine will work. The gumballs will keep getting smaller and smaller until you finally go broke.No direct-response ad campaign has ever worked long-term.Each offer has to be new, surprising and different. And then you must say, “But wait. There’s more! Order now and we’ll include at no extra charge…” This is called benefit stacking.Remember Columbia House? They did $1.4 billion in 1996 as a result of direct response marketing. Nineteen years later, Columbia House filed bankruptcy. Their 1.4 billion fell to just 17 million in total sales. In other words, the size of the gumball coming out of their “predictable, scalable direct response machine” used to be 8,200 percent bigger.You could argue that what killed them was the emergence of the internet, but your argument won’t hold water. If Columbia House had built their business around the customer instead of around the offer, they would have become iTunes.Google just told me iTunes is trending to do $5.03 billion this quarter; more than $20 billion this year.Apple built iTunes through bonding, not direct response.The reason gumball people don’t like to invest in bonding ads is because it’s like flying on a commercial jet. You hear a roaring noise as the plane begins to rattle and shake and unsustainable amounts of fuel are consumed and OH-MY-GOD we’re approaching the end of the runway! The client shouts, “This sucks. I don’t like it. Shut this thing down and get me out of here.”I weep at the number of advertising flights I see aborted. All that money invested and the twitchy little bastards never even left the airport.If you can find the courage – and fuel – to embrace a long-term bonding campaign, sooner or later you’ll experience a moment called “liftoff” when everything suddenly gets smooth and quiet and the nosecone of the plane tilts sharply upward.You’re pushed back into your seat as you climb.Wow. You can see forever from up here.Goodbye Columbia House.Roy H. Williams

Branding – bonding with a hero or a company or other imaginary character – is merely an entangling of identity hooks.We connect because we are alike.But where do we gather these identity hooks on which hang our self-definitions?“The music we listen to may not define who we are. But it’s a damn good start.”― Jodi Picoult, Sing You HomeOur books and movies define us.“What makes a library a reflection of its owner is not merely the choice of the titles themselves, but the mesh of associations implied in the choice… A keen observer might be able to tell who I am from a tattered copy of the poems of Blas de Otero, the number of volumes by Robert Louis Stevenson, the large section devoted to detective stories, the miniscule section devoted to literary theory, the fact that there is much Plato and very little Aristotle on my shelves. Every library is autobiographical.”– Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night, p. 194“I’m not really sure which parts of myself are real and which parts are things I’ve gotten from books.”― Beatrice Sparks, Go Ask AliceOur imaginations define us.“Perhaps it’s impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.”― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game“When you become the image of your own imagination, it’s the most powerful thing you could ever do.”― RuPaulOur relationships define us.“Relationships take up energy; letting go of them, psychiatrists theorize, entails mental work. When you lose someone you were close to, you have to reassess your picture of the world and your place in it. The more your identity was wrapped up with the deceased, the more difficult the loss.”― Meghan O’Rourke“People leave imprints on our lives, shaping who we become in much the same way that a symbol is pressed into the page of a book to tell you who it comes from. Dogs, however, leave paw prints on our lives and our souls, which are as unique as fingerprints in every way.”― Ashly LorenzanaOur beliefs about God define us.“Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion.”― Brennan Manning, Abba’s Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate BelongingOur weaknesses define us.“Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.”― G.K. ChestertonOur choices define us.“Identity was partly heritage, partly upbringing, but mostly the choices you make in life.”― Patricia Briggs, Cry Wolf“We are not defined by the family into which we are born, but the one we choose and create. We are not born, we become.”― Tori Spelling“We are what we love. We are the things, the people, the ideas we spend our days with. They center us, they drive us, they define us to our very core.”― Daisy Whitney, The RivalsBut what does this mean to a business?“Branding is not merely about differentiating products; it is about striking emotional chords with consumers. It is about cultivating identity, attachment, and trust to inspire customer loyalty. Chinese brands score low on attributes such as ‘sophisticated,’ ‘desirable,’ ‘innovative,’ ‘friendly,’ and ‘trustworthy.'”– Professor Nirmalya Kumar, London Business School“The firmest friendship is based on an identity of likes and dislikes.”– Gaius Sallustius Crispus, 35 BCQuirks and preferences, foibles and flaws, these are the essence of branding. They are the feathers and robes of a tribe.Your mainstream virtues do not define you.Definitions like “Honest” “Family-oriented” “Success-driven” and “Caring” blur you into the watery crowd, for which of us doesn’t embrace these things?If you will stand on a surfboard and ride the waves, you must confess your uncommon characteristics.“Bookworm”“Poker Player”“Ballroom Dancer”“Bow-Hunter”“Lover of Marching Bands”“Fantasy Football Freak”“Singer of Broadway Show Tunes”“History Nerd”“Shade-tree Mechanic”“Aspiring Magician”“Rescuer of Insects”“Would-be Inventor.”Your guilty pleasures are what people remember best about you. They add depth and dimension to your image. They are the identity hooks that entangle others.They are the feathers of your tribe.Wear them with pride.Roy H. Williams

I got some great news last week. A friend who read my Musings of an Old Ad Writer said to me, “You’re not old, you’re middle aged.”Woo-hoo! If he’s right, I’m going to live to be 114.During the years that I was, in fact, middle aged, I was too busy to have a midlife crisis.So I decided to have one now.A midlife crisis, as I understand it, is a ridiculous and ill-advised grab at the fleeting shadow of one’s former years. So I chose to reclaim my lost youth by wearing a distinctive brand of canvas shoes that defined me when I was a kid. Zappos was happy to send 5 pairs of this wildly inappropriate footwear and I began wearing them everywhere I went.No one seemed to notice. Then I learned that my “new look” is the standard uniform of silicon valley CEOs.Crap. I can’t even conjure up a credible mid-life crisis. (I’m continuing to wear the shoes though, because they’re even more comfortable than I remembered.)The good thing about forgetting to have a midlife crisis is that you avoid a lot of pain.When I was one year old, John Steinbeck wrote a letter to his agent, Elizabeth Otis, in which he expressed regret over what his midlife crisis had cost him.I’m going to do what people call rest for a while. I don’t quite know what that means – probably reorganize. I don’t know what work is entailed, writing work, I mean, but I do know I have to slough off nearly fifteen years and go back and start again at the split path where I went wrong because it was easier. True things gradually disappeared and shiny easy things took their place.”– John Steinbeck, Dec. 30, (the day before New Year’s Eve,) 1959From Steinbeck: A Life in LettersJohn Steinbeck was neither the first nor the last to feel those feelings and think those thoughts.Humanity has long been distracted by “shiny easy things” but rarely does anyone publicly admit they made a dumb move “at the split path where I went wrong because it was easier.” Keep in mind that Steinbeck never meant for his letter to be published. He was writing only to his agent, Elizabeth Otis.Oscar Wilde wrote a similar, private letter 118 years ago. Oscar was an Irishman living in London during the years leading up to the Spanish-American War. He died 2 years before John Steinbeck was born.In his youth, Oscar was a sparkling novelist and playwright, a bon vivant and a wastrel with a dazzling wit. At the height of his fame, Oscar was imprisoned for being gay. After serving 2 years, he was released in May, 1897.Three weeks later, he wrote a letter to his friend, William Rothenstein.…I know, dear Will, you will be pleased to know that I have not come out of prison an embittered or disappointed man. On the contrary. In many ways I have gained much. I am not really ashamed of having been in prison: I often was in more shameful places: but I am really ashamed of having led a life unworthy of an artist. I don’t say that Messalina is a better companion than Sporus,* or that the one is all right and the other all wrong: I know simply that a life of definite and studied materialism, and philosophy of appetite and cynicism, and a cult of sensual and senseless ease, are bad things for an artist: they narrow the imagination, and dull the more delicate sensibilities. I was all wrong, my dear boy, in my life. I was not getting the best out of me. Now, I think with good health, and the friendship of a few good, simple nice fellows like yourself, and a quiet mode of living, with isolation for thought, and freedom from the endless hunger for pleasures that wreck the body and imprison the soul, – well, I think I may do things yet, that you all may like. Of course I have lost much, but still, my dear Will, when I reckon up all that is left to me, the sun and the sea of this beautiful world; its dawns dim with gold and its nights hung with silver; many books, and all flowers, and a few good friends; and a brain and a body to which health and power are not denied – really I am rich when I count up what I still have: and as for money, my money did me horrible harm. It wrecked me. I hope just to have enough to enable me to live simply and write well.”Oscar Wilde died in Paris in November, 1900, at the age of 45.John Steinbeck recovered from his midlife crisis and so did sparkling Oscar. Both of them returned to their work as writers with a heightened appreciation for the simple pleasure they took in the daily labor of it.To what wheel do you put your shoulder each day? On what do you labor?John Steinbeck and Oscar Wilde could have saved themselves a lot of pain if they had read the open confessions of Solomon who describes in his Ecclesiastes what may have been history’s most opulent and elaborate midlife crisis.In chapter one, Solomon says,I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens.”But he finds this grand quest for knowledge to be pointless, hollow and empty. So he changes direction in the second chapter,I said to myself, ‘Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.’”After several pages chronicling how he flung himself headlong into this and that, Solomon concludes that laughter and drunkenness and sex and accomplishment and great wealth are all equally empty:I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;    I refused my heart no pleasure.My heart took delight in all my labor,    and this was the reward for all my toil.Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done    and what I had toiled to achieve,everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;    nothing was gained under the sun.So did Solomon ever find an answer?Interestingly, his best advice is found at the end of chapter two:A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God.”Solomon’s point was this: “Choose to enjoy your work. Because when you do, every day is a good day.”So enjoy the day! This day.Yes, this one.Solomon had no better advice.And neither do I.Roy H. Williams

There are words used by young advertising professionals that I try desperately to avoid. Two of the most painful phrases for me are “unique selling proposition” and “branding.”When I was young, those phrases meant the same to me as they did to everyone else. But I take comfort in the words of Muhammad Ali, “The man who views the world at fifty the same as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.”Here’s what thirty years have taught me:Very few “selling propositions” are unique.If the public cares enough about a particular “selling proposition” to respond to it, your competitors will quickly adopt it. So tell me, which was the first online company to offer free shipping and how long did it remain “unique” to them?Those things that make you truly unique are rarely “selling propositions.”You can take two things from this observation. The first is that when you become overly committed to differentiating your “selling proposition” from your competitors’ “selling propositions” you’re about to make a mountain out of a molehill. You’re going to build a sales campaign around something “unique” that no one really cares about.The second thing you can take from this observation – and this is important – is that unique things about you don’t have to be “selling propositions” to be valuable.Keep that thought in mind while I tell you my problem with the word “branding.” We’ll come back to “unique things about you” in a minute.Most people think “branding” is the consistent use of a logo, a slogan, a color palette and a font to create recognizable layouts.But this isn’t really branding. It’s a style guide for labeling.Yes, your company should have a visual style guide as well as an auditory style guide that includes music and other sounds, and a linguistic style guide that includes 9 to 14 brandable chunks, distinctively memorable sentences and phrases that people associate with your company.Brandable chunks are not slogans. Slogans, for the most part, are AdSpeak.AdSpeak is anything your customer interprets as “blah, blah, blah.”One form of AdSpeak has relevance to the customer, but no credibility. In other words, your customer believes it to be hype. The second form of AdSpeak is credible, but has no relevance. Your customer believes you. They just don’t care.Have you created crackling and sizzling brandable chunks? Do they dance from your lips and make people smile? Does everyone in your company use these brandable chunks in daily conversation with current and prospective customers? Do you sprinkle these chunks randomly throughout your ads?But let me be clear: even if you have a visual style guide, an auditory style guide, and a linguistic style guide that includes brandable chunks, all of these put together still fall short of true branding.True branding is bonding.This is why those things that make you unique don’t have to be “selling propositions” to be valuable in an ad campaign. If your quirks and foibles and preferences and flaws cause people to bond with you, isn’t that enough?If I’ve had a secret as an ad writer, that’s been it.Johann Hari summarizes this essence of true branding six minutes into his amazing TED talk, Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong.Human beings have a natural and innate need to bond, and when we’re happy and healthy, we’ll bond and connect with each other, but if you can’t do that, because you’re traumatized or isolated or beaten down by life, you will bond with something that will give you some sense of relief. Now, that might be gambling, that might be pornography, that might be cocaine, that might be cannabis, but you will bond and connect with something because that’s our nature. That’s what we want as human beings.”You might wonder why an ad man would be listening to TED talks about addiction. I hope you will excuse me for sounding Machiavellian, but isn’t the goal of “people becoming addicted to your brand” exactly what we’re hoping to accomplish?True branding – bonding – happens when the identity hooks of people become intertwined. We bond through shared experiences and beliefs, hopes and fears, fascinations and flaws.People will be attracted to you when you quit being scared to be seen as you really are.I’ve been telling my clients this for years.Maybe someday I’ll get there myself.Roy H. Williams

Laughter brings escape from monotony.Sadness teaches us what is important to our heart.Commitment carries us through the dark hours, the dry places, the sad times.Enthusiasm, “God within,” opens our eyes to the possible.JP Engelbrecht says a business owner can learn a lot about managing groups of people by studying famous monarchs. “If you manage tight-to-loose” says JP, “your people will build statues of you in the parks.”I said, “What do you mean, tight-to-loose?”“Begin with a lot of strict rules and policies,” JP answered, “then loosen them up when people perform well; give them more freedom and autonomy. Monarchs that do the opposite – the ones who manage loose-to-tight – are the ones that get assassinated. It’s dangerous to take away freedoms once they’re given.”JP’s advice triggered the memory of a delightful video by Daniel Pink (which you’ll find on Page Four of Indiana Beagle’s rabbit hole,) in which Pink says we need just 3 things to make us happy:1. Autonomy, the freedom to do things our own way.2. Mastery, the ability to get better and better at something.3. Purpose, the knowledge that we’re making a difference.JP’s comment also reminded me of a statement shared with me by Eric Rhoads: “The best fertilizer is the gardener’s shadow.” Eric’s comment, in turn, triggered the memory of something Tom Grimes shared with me by email in the middle of the night exactly one year ago – July 29, 2014. Tom says the happiest companies are run by business owners who practice “Management by Walking Around.” You can read his fun and insightful email on Page One of Indy’s rabbit hole. (Just click the trio of flying children over Indy’s head at the top of this page.)As you can see, I connected these thoughts dot-to-dot-to-dot and realized once more that the combined insights of the people in our lives can be an incredibly powerful thing. If we could collect these experiences and organize them to bring forward the best of the past, that would be magic in a bottle.[This thought, wearing many different disguises, has been orbiting my brain like Halley’s Comet, showing up periodically in the middle of the night ever since Mia Erichson sent the note about the Trivium and Quadrivium that became the Monday Morning Memo, Glenn Gould Played Piano. ]What this Means to the Future of Wizard AcademyWizard Academy was established 15 years ago in a Monday Morning Memo. The things you readers have built since then are remarkable! No, remarkable is the wrong word. What you’ve built is astonishing. You stepped forward and donated your time and wisdom and money to create:a worldwide group of alumni and adjunct faculty that are positively electric.a spectacular campus with zero debt.a network of thousands of business owners who claim the experiences they’ve had at Wizard Academy have made a huge difference in the success of their endeavors.The time has come for us to complete what we have started.The good news is that it doesn’t take much money.The bad news is that it takes something far more precious.I need you to take inventory of your intellectual property – those techniques and shortcuts and special bits of wisdom you’ve gathered over the years – and send that list to Vice Chancellor Whittington. Wizard Academy is known for its ability to teach the “art” of running a business. The time has come for us to add the “science.”Until we have done this, our school will remain incomplete.What do you have – in your head – that you could give to The American Small Business Institute at Wizard Academy?The ASBI will collect and offer all the left-brain, sequential, step-by-step, mathematical and procedural genius of its faculty and alumni to create a streamlined, highly accelerated “executive summary” business education spanning everything from management to bookkeeping to banking to taxes to human resources and contract law and all the dozens of other things that haven’t yet crossed my mind.But I don’t need them to cross my mind. I need them to cross yours. Daniel Whittington needs your help to outline and frame and collect and organize all those “JP Engelbrecht,” “Eric Rhoads” and “Tom Grimes” bits of insight in a structured, step-by-step way.Virtually every college class spanning a semester can easily be summarized in less than 30 minutes. Am I right? You know I am.I’m asking every successful CEO, every entrepreneur and MBA and business executive – including you – “What are the three most valuable things you’ve learned? Can you articulate them clearly, tell us when and how to use these tips and techniques and best practices, and then finish your tale with a real-life case history including specific before-and-after details? Can you do all of this in less than 7 minutes?”Some of you will have more than three things you can share. We’re counting on it.Traditional colleges offer degree paths toward Master of Arts degrees. Similarly, Wizard Academy was built on what feels like an accelerated PhD in the art of running a business.But colleges also offer Master of Science degrees. These are the sorts of studies that will be offered by The American Small Business Institute at Wizard Academy. Some of these new “science of business” classes will be on campus. Many will be online.So I ask you once more, what do you have to give? Are you willing to write a focused summary and send it to Daniel@WizardAcademy.org?We need your special gift – your secret sauce – even if it’s so small that it becomes a single 3-minute segment on video. This is not a time for humility. You know what you’re good at. Tell us what it is.We need those things for which you have enthusiasm – “God Within” – so that you can help us open people’s eyes to the possible.Roy H. Williams

You cannot instruct a person to have enthusiasm any more than you can instruct them to give birth to a redheaded child.The person must first be inspired.Inspiration is what you give them.Enthusiasm is what they give you.People inhale inspiration and exhale enthusiasm.They cannot give you enthusiasm until you give them inspiration.Neither is a product of instruction.There is a time to instruct and a time to inspire.We often think we’re doing one when we’re actually doing the other.Is your enthusiasm contagious or is it contained?Are you inspiring those around you?Never is this more important than when you’re working with artists.I spent a lot of money recently* in a series of experiments with 99 Designs, the logo development firm that allows graphic designers around the world to submit logo designs in the hope of winning your prize money. (I know several designers who are deeply insulted by this crowd-sourcing of their sacred art and I understand their feelings completely, but technology is a freight train that doesn’t care who is standing on its tracks.)The new logo for Wizard of Ads came from a designer in Italy.The Wizard Academy logo came from a designer in Minnesota.Indy’s Rabbit Hole logo came from Croatia.Angel Skating: IndonesiaWhisk(e)y Marketing School: GermanyDUI Rescue Guys: the PhilppinesLast week my sons decided to invest in a logo for VidBetter, the hardware and training division of their online video business. They gave the logo designers instructions that sounded very similar to the descriptions business owners give you when you ask them about their businesses:We invent equipment and produce training to help non-professionals make better videos for their businesses. Friendly. Helpful. Step-by-step. Simple. Quirky. We want our customers to feel empowered to make great videos that share who they are, and what they have to offer. The resulting videos are always unscripted. The personality of our brand is witty, natural, authentic, real, light-hearted and smart. Our customers aren’t children, but they aren’t boring/stuffy businesses either.”All the logos my sons received during the first two days of the contest looked surprisingly similar, just like those predictable ads that are created when you focus on your “unique selling proposition.”So they sent the designers some new instructions:I get it. The words ‘Vid’ and ‘Better’ are abstract and don’t lend themselves to cool visuals. Triangular play-button icons come with the territory, and we’ve seen a lot of them. (Actually, some of them are pretty awesome.) That being said, I’m also very open to ridiculous, attention grabbing visuals, as long as they’re done well. I have a deep appreciation for off-beat, over the top, and silly things – again, as long as they’re done well. If you have an absurd idea – even if it doesn’t match the words “VidBetter,” bring the madness. A giant fire breathing grizzly bear with a propeller beanie and a jet pack, clutching a video camera? Cool. A 19th century nature sketch of a proud fox with a vintage camera strapped on its head? Awesome. A squirrel with a camera, riding a dog as it chases a cat? Nice. I’m totally serious. The money is guaranteed in this contest. If we end up with a strategically safe logo for VidBetter, that’s fine. But I’m hoping for one that people see and think, ‘That’s crazy, what the heck is VidBetter?!’ This is your chance to run with that crazy idea that always made you laugh – but was too risky to ever use. Take that idea, stuff it with dynamite, wrap it in bacon, hurl it into the sun, then wrap the sun with more bacon. The parent company is sunpop.com.”The bloody-nose impact of the second series of logos they received is amazing.But the talent of the designers hadn’t changed.It was the inspiration that had changed.See the logos on the first two pages of Indiana Beagle’s rabbit hole. Just click the rhinocerous at the top of the page and you’re there.Roy H. Williams* These experiments were funded entirely by me. I never experiment with client dollars. I learned how to extract the best designs from the 78,000 graphic designers registered at 99 Designs so the Wizard of Ads Partners could confidently guide their clients through the process when those clients need designs. (Believe it or not, I spent so much money in such a short period of time that 99 Designs contacted us and offered to pay $500 for a few minutes over the telephone. Woo-hoo!) A

Occasionally a client will send a spreadsheet of company statistics and ask me to comment on what I see.I usually look and see ambiguous statistics but I certainly don’t want to say that.Discussing business numbers with people is like discussing religion. No matter what you say, you’re unlikely to change their intrinsic beliefs, so I always approach these conversations carefully.“What do you see?” I ask.“Well, last year 68 percent of our customers were repeat customers and 32 percent were new customers. Now we’re selling 63 percent repeat customers and 37 percent new customers.”“What do you think this tells us?”“It tells us your ads are working!” the client says excitedly.“Perhaps it does,” I say. “But it could just as easily indicate that our competition is growing stronger or that we have somehow offended or disappointed our old customers.”My client gave me a confused look, so I continued, “If a smaller percentage of our business is repeat customers, couldn’t this mean that fewer customers are choosing to buy from us again? Couldn’t it indicate that we’ve disappointed them somehow?”The confused look became a worried look. “But our sales volume has never been higher.”“I know that,” I said. “But that could mean that we’re bringing in new customers fast enough to disguise the very serious problem that we’re losing our old customers to someone else. After all, you said yourself that our percentage of repeat customers is down.”“Do you think we have a problem with our old customers?” the client asked, now truly worried.“Not at all,” I smiled. “I’m just saying that nothing can be learned from the numbers you gave me.”Not everything that can be measured has meaning.Many of you are now recoiling in doubt and disbelief. I get that. Like I said, talking about business numbers is like talking about religion.Here’s how I finished that conversation: “If a company sells a product or service that people buy once a year, what percentage of their customers will be new customers in year one?”“One hundred percent,” said my client with confidence.“And if our sales volume doubles in year two and exactly 50 percent of the customers are new customers, what percentage of customers did we retain from year one?”The client thought for a moment, then said, “If business has doubled and one half of our customers are new and the other half are repeat, this means that one hundred percent of last year’s customers chose to buy from us again.”I continued, “Sales in year three are exactly triple the sales of year one. One third of the customers are new and two-thirds are repeat customers. What does this tell us?”Another moment of thought, he answered, “We have 100 percent retention of customers from the first two years.”That’s when I said, “But someone is likely to point out that your percentage of new customers is falling and they’ll likely interpret this to mean that your ads aren’t working. After all, your sales volume grew 100 percent in year two but only 50 percent in year three and your percentage of new customers has fallen from 100 percent to only 33 percent. You’re now doing triple the volume you were doing just two years ago but these numbers would seem to indicate that you’ve got serious problems with your advertising.”The client began to smile again, so I continued, “Oh, and I forgot to tell you that this company increased their prices by 12 percent at the beginning of year two, so none of what we just calculated is accurate. And that company has only been in business for 3 years! Your company, on the other hand, has been in business since 1939 and you sell a product the average person buys every 13 years and lots of old customers have died or moved away and new people have moved to town and some of your old competitors have gotten more aggressive while others have gone out of business and we need to factor in the percentage of sales opportunities your salespeople are closing and yes, you’ve also got a brand new ad campaign. If we take all that into consideration – assuming all the data is available and can be trusted – how are we going to calculate it and what do you think we’re going to learn?”He smiled as he ceremoniously tore up the spreadsheet and said, “We’re making a lot of money and I like the ads.”“Good. Let’s go have lunch.”So we did.When I got back from lunch, two other clients had emailed spreadsheets to me and asked me to comment on what I saw.Sigh.Roy H. Williams

Whiners, blame shifters, indignant people, people with victim mentalities, online trolls, people who demand things and cheerless givers of “constructive criticism” are all herded into one decrepit old corral in my brain.That corral is a category in my mind.As these unhappy cows moan “moooo” I walk sadly away and think “dog food.”I put them in that corral so they can’t follow me. Cows stand in the way of getting things done.Occasionally one of the cows gets tired of hanging out with all the mooers and moaners and whiners and kicks open the gate to escape. I applaud that cow. I love that cow. The world needs more cows like that one.I remember the day I kicked open the gate.A funny thing happens when a cow kicks open a gate, escapes the other cows, struggles to the hilltop and views the far horizon: it grows a horn from its forehead.Is this a unicorn?No, it’s a rhino.The world is full of injustice. It’s everywhere.Do something about it.The world is full of opportunity. It’s everywhere.Do something about it.Pick a purpose and then lower your head and charge.Patience, taken too far, becomes cowardice. There is a time to shut up and do something.God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference.”A father was unable to explain to his little girl why she couldn’t go to an amusement park. So Martin Luther King decided to do something and we became a better nation.A boy was hospitalized when a group of bullies threw him down a flight of stairs and then beat him until he blacked out. This sort of thing happened to him every day but the boy refused to see himself as a victim. He chose not to let those experiences define him. Ashlee Vance tells that story in her new book, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future.I actually think those bullies may have been the secret to Elon’s success. When facing a risky business decision, he was less afraid than the rest of us. After all, the worst that could happen was that he might lose all his money and be embarrassed. No one was going to throw him down the stairs, right?Fantastic ideas are more common than you think.What’s rare is a person who will take action.When a friend tells you about an idea, your first impulse is to think of all the reasons why that idea might not work. You immediately look for potential problems because it’s our nature to look for hidden dangers. And we know that if we encourage our friend to take a chance and it turns out badly, we’re going to feel terrible.So we make them feel terrible instead.The next time someone tells you about their new idea, consider this for a response: give them your brightest smile and say,I’m going to give you three reasons why this is a dangerous idea and then I’m going to give you three reasons why it’s brilliant. If the brilliant parts outweigh the dangerous parts, then this could be an idea whose time has come.”Having painted yourself into a corner with your promise of three and three, you will immediately be able to think of three huge impediments and then you’ll just as easily be able to think of three reasons why the idea is truly brilliant.You just became the best friend on earth. Everyone needs a friend like you.Fantastic ideas are more common than you think.People willing to take action are rare.But most precious of all is a friend who is willing to encourage you.Will you be such a friend this week?I promise you will have the chance.Roy H. Williams

Showmanship is symbolism, the essence of pageantry and tradition: the sweep of an extended arm with an upraised palm in an expansive gesture; a deep bow with the added flourish of both arms extended to the sides, again with palms turned upward; dramatic emphasis expressed by hopping in place on the balls of your feet – timed precisely to the syllables you speak – pent-up energy that demands release.Showmanship is mesmerizing but it takes courage because it’s easy to feel you’re making a fool of yourself.Storytelling requires finesse and restraint as you work your way through a series of small reveals, waiting with the patience of a magician for the moment of the big reveal.Showmanship and storytelling don’t change reality but they do change perception.Are you beginning to understand why an ad man might be interested in these?In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the California Institute of Technology and Stanford’s business school determined that the intensity of the pleasure we experience when tasting wine is linked directly to its price. “And that’s true even when, unbeknownst to the test subjects, it’s exactly the same Cabernet Sauvignon with a dramatically different price tag.”The story you tell about the wine affects how it tastes.The study wasn’t speculative; it was medical. The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) to monitor the medial orbitofrontal cortex – the pleasure center of the brain – of wine connoisseurs who tasted wines after hearing stories about them.The scientific verdict: good stories accelerate the physical pleasures generated through our senses. This should come as no surprise, really. We’ve known for decades that humans are uniquely gifted to attach complex meanings to sounds.Words. Work. Magic.Daniel Whittington’s “Tour of Scotland” – an adventure in storytelling and showmanship and single malt Scotch – has attracted so much attention that Wizard Academy is launching the world’s first curriculum to officially certify Whisk(e)y Sommeliers. In this endeavor he’ll be joined by cognoscenti Tom Fischer, the founder of BourbonBlog.com, one of the world’s most authoritative voices on corn liquor (Bourbon.)Whisk(e)y Marketing School isn’t about making whiskey; it’s about putting on a great show and telling great stories to accelerate the pleasure of customers “taking a Tour of Scotland” or “going on a Bourbon Run.” Fine restaurants worldwide will soon have tables full of people mesmerized as their Whisk(e)y Sommeliers wheel carts to their tables, open elegant wooden boxes, slip magnificent badges of office over their heads, and begin their tales of wonder.Same song, second verse:Angel SkatingTM is a new organization whose mission is to use storytelling and showmanship to popularize a little-known sport called artistic roller skating. You’ve seen figure skating in the Winter Olympics, right? Now imagine exactly that, but on roller skates. The objective of Angel Skating is to help artistic roller skating become the figure skating of the Summer Olympics.Angel Skating was born last week when Craig Arthur, the director of Wizard of Ads, Australia, was in Austin for 10 days of catching up at the home office. Wizard of Ads partners Tom Wanek, Paul Boomer and Dave Young flew in from Columbia, Cleveland and Tucson to hang out with Craig, who mentioned that his daughter, Bridget, was becoming rather good at artistic roller skating, but that the sport wasn’t very well packaged or promoted.Packaging and promoting are just different names for showmanship and storytelling.A Tour of Scotland and a comical comment from Indiana Beagle was all it took. Angel SkatingTM was born before the sun went down. An official logo, a cartoon character mascot, a series of domain names and the rules of advancement through a series of “elegance levels” were all agreed upon within 36 hours.Showmanship and storytelling – packaging and promotion – are what whiskey tasting and roller skating have in common with what you do.And now you know what we do.Roy H. Williamsand the Wizard of Ads Partners

I have a client who has a lot of marketing savvy. A few weeks ago he sent me a list of seven copy points and asked if this was our radio strategy.I spent a lot of time crafting a carefully considered response, so I thought I might share it with you. Perhaps it will trigger a realization or an insight you can use.There’s an equally good chance, however, that you’ll decide I’m wrong.Here’s the response I sent him:You’ve asked for clarity on the issue of our radio strategy and you sent along a very well-crafted chart to illustrate your perception of it. This is obviously important to you.I’m happy to help in any way I can, of course.My discomfort with the list you sent me is rooted in the following question:What is the purpose of this document? Is it meant to be a guiding document?Are we creating a standard by which ads are to be evaluated in the future?If so, my experience has been that if I agree with this list, it will lead to the inclusion of too many claims being jammed into a single piece of copy. Within a year, I would likely be hearing,This is a good ad, but you didn’t say this or this or this. We need to include those, remember? Didn’t we agree on this list of seven things that our ads should accomplish? Is there any way we can include those other three things, too?”A good ad makes a single point, powerfully. A bad ad sounds like a grocery list.The only person impressed by such an ad is the advertiser who wrote it.If this document is meant to be a list of recurrent copy-points, it is incomplete. Consequently, the adoption of this list would put us at risk of focusing too much of our airtime on too few objectives.Our strategy is to win not only the mind, but the heart as well. We need our prospective customer to feel good about us. This is very delicate and difficult and is not likely to be accomplished if we are constrained by a regimented list of intellectual copy points. My experience has been that such lists lead to the ad campaign becoming more structured and informative, but less persuasive.You’ve mentioned on a number of occasions that you believe the strongest response we’ve had was triggered by an ad I sent you that was written in a very intimate, confessional style. The effectiveness of that ad rose from the fact that it didn’t speak to the listener in the style of an advertiser speaking to a customer. It spoke in the style of a friend speaking to a friend. That ad surprised and delighted the customer. It’s hard to put surprise and delight on a checklist, but I know how important they are. Every fiber of me knows it. Thirty-seven years of attempting to persuade the public and then monitoring the results of those attempts has carved it into my soul.It’s perfectly natural for an organized person to want a document that summarizes the intellectual elements of their advertising, point by point. You have several years of experience as a CEO that has taught you the wisdom of this.My experience as an ad writer has been otherwise. This is at the root of my anxiety, I think. The hidden danger of lists is that they lead to predictability.If you continue to feel that you need a checklist, I suggest that we add the following to the top of it:Be remembered.We must be memorable. This requires us to surprise the customer in some small way in every ad. Without an element of surprise, there can be no delight.Make them like us.If we win the heart, the mind will follow. Our minds routinely create logic to justify what our hearts have already decided.Add these to your list and I’m good with it. There will be times when these two points will be the only two things I attempt to accomplish in a script.Thank you for asking for this clarity in such an elegant and respectful way.Your style of communication is one of the things I like best about you.And it’s one of the things our audience likes best about you, too.Ciao for Niao,Roy H. Williams