Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

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. He could buy the base bracelets for 6 dollars apiece if he ordered at least 500. That would be $3,000. But his real investment would be another $30,000 for the countless beads and charms with which women could personalize their bracelets.His friends gave him lots of advice:“Charm bracelets are dead. That trend has come and gone.”“They’ll bring in the wrong customer. You’ll lose your reputation for upscale sophistication.”“It would cost more to advertise the charm bracelets than you could make on them.”What did Brad decide?He decided to order 500 bracelets and give them all away.My staff and I said “Hooray!”Here’s what his friends said:“People won’t value the bracelet if they get it for free.”“People will take the bracelets, then sell them on eBay.”“Giving away jewelry will make you look desperate.”But Brad knew the story of K.C. Gillette, the man who gave away 90,884 razor handles in 1904 in the hope of selling disposable blades. By 1910 he was one of the richest men in America. Last year his company did more than $9 billion.How did it work out for Brad?The 500 free bracelets were gone in less than a week.And within 6 weeks Brad had sold more than $100,000 worth of beads and charms. Only 28 people who took a bracelet failed to buy any ornaments for it.This week Brad told me, “Groups of women are coming into the store during their lunch hour to shop for ornaments, beads and charms. Every day is like a party. The traffic is amazing. We're making lots of new friends and winning lots of new customers. It was one of the smartest things we’ve ever done.”Brad Lawrence had the courage of his convictions. Do you?Life is more fun on the edge.And the view is better, too.Roy H. Williams

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 would light up. I could never quite see the point. There must be something wrong with me.I’ve since learned that it’s fashionable to be skilled at something pointless: carry a pointed ball across a white line on a field. Toss an orange ball through an iron ring. Drive a car in circles really fast.If I were normal, I would have favorite pointy-ball people, orange-ball people and circle-drivers. This is where I fall short. This is where I’m broken.I’ve never been quite sure where I went wrong.AWhen Did Macaroni Become “Pasta?”David Freeman asked the question. It seemed to emerge from nowhere.Tuscan Hall was filled with executives from the largest food companies in the world. He was in the midst of unveiling 2 new methods for accelerated branding when he stopped in mid-sentence and asked, “When did Macaroni become ‘Pasta?’”Then, without waiting for an answer, he continued what he’d been saying. The audience, absorbed in what David was teaching, forgot his non sequitur within the span of 3 adrenaline-fueled heartbeats.For me, it was just another glimpse into the inner dialogue of a strange and wonderful friend.I answered David in my mind. “Macaroni became ‘pasta’ on the same day the hobo became ‘the homeless,’ the trailer house became the ‘mobile home’ and stock-car racing became ‘NASCAR.’”It would appear we’ve chosen to celebrate the mundane, elevate the ordinary and idolize the average.I guess struggling for excellence was just too hard.A Defense of Intellectual RigorYes, I believe that all men are created equal.But that doesn’t mean that all men remain equal.Some are givers, some are takers. Some create while others destroy. A few people work for the benefit of others, but most work only to benefit themselves.People are not equal. Their motives, choices and actions make them large or small.Are you being large today? Please do.May I confess something to you?Do you promise not to tell?I admire people who work hard to make things better for everyone. My heroes are the men and women who struggle to create a brighter tomorrow. I know this makes me a misfit, but I don't care anymore.Are you a misfit, too?There's work to be done. Much of our world is in pain. Pointy balls, orange balls, balls under glass and going in circles be damned.Sometimes it just makes me sad.Does it make you sad, too?Wizard Academy is a group of strange and wonderful misfits like David Freeman, Corrine Taylor, Shaun Courbat, Jodie Gateman, Oz Jaxxon, Michele Miller, Mark Fox, Jeff and Bryan Eisenberg and You.Thanks for coming, friend.I no longer feel alone.Roy H. Williams

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 secret words? “The Risk of Insult is the Price of Clarity.”Clarity. Ah, there we have it.Rare is the ad that makes its point clearly.The customers who cost you money are the ones you never see; the ones who don’t come in because your ads never got their attention.I was writing an ad this week and decided to insert a word flag. I chose a phrase of declarative rebuttal; “And to that, we say, ‘Piffle and Pooh.’”Obviously, ‘Piffle and Pooh’ is just a whimsical way of saying “Poppycock.”My client was worried that people might be offended, so he asked me to change it to something else. I hung up the phone and yelled at the walls. If you’re curious what I said, just walk into my office. I’m pretty sure it’s still echoing in there.Would you like to know the 4 Biggest Mistakes made by advertisers?Mistake 1: Demanding “Polished and Professional” AdsIf you insist that your ads “sound right,” you force them to be predictable.Predictable ads do not surprise Broca’s Area of the brain. They do not open the door to conscious awareness. They fail to gain the attention of your prospective customer. This is bad.Mistake 2: Informing without PersuadingStudy journalism and you’ll create ads that present information without:(A.) substantiating their claims,“Lowest prices guaranteed!” (Or what, you apologize?)(B.) explaining the benefit to the customer.“We use the Synchro-static method!” (Which means…?)“It’s Truck Month at Ramsey Ford!” (Come to the party, bring my truck?)Mistake 3: Entertaining without PersuadingStudy creative writing and you’ll draft ads that deliver entertainment without:(A.)   delivering a clear message.“Yo Quiero Taco Bell” (Dogs like our food, you will, too?)(B.)   causing the customer to imagine themselves taking the desired action.“Yo Quiero Taco Bell” (I should buy a taco for my Chihuahua?)The best ads cause customers to see themselves taking the action you desire. These ads deliver:INVOLVEMENT: Watch a dancing silhouette ad for the iPod and mirror neurons in your brain will cause part of you to dance, as well. This is good advertising.CLARITY: The white earphone cords leading into the ears of the dancing silhouette make it clear that the white iPod is a personal music machine.Mistake 4: Decorating without PersuadingGraphic artists will often create a visual style and call it “branding.” This is fine if your product is fashion, a fragrance, an attitude or a lifestyle, but God help you if you sell a service or a product that’s meant to perform.“Do you like the ad?” asks the graphic artist.“Yes, it’s perfect,” replies the client, “the colors create the right mood and the images feel exactly right. I think it represents us well.”Sorry, but your banker disagrees.Hey, I’ve got an idea; why don’t you and Artsy go home and redecorate the living room at your house? Me? I’ll stay here and ruffle some feathers and sell some stuff. I hope you don’t mind.But you probably will. Because you worry needlessly when people don't like your ads.Ninety-eight point nine percent of all the customers who hate your ads will still come to your store and buy from you when they need what you sell. These customers don’t cost you money; they just complain to the cashier as they’re handing over their cash.Do you believe the public has to like an ad for the ad to be effective? You do?To that I say “Piffle and Pooh.”Yours,Roy H. Williams

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 sit scratching my head wondering where I got it.But thank you, friend, it’s an interesting book.Here’s what I found on page 249:“Gestalten – (German noun) Little wholes that make up larger wholes.The methodology of every respectable science is to analyze the subject matter of chemistry, physics, or biology until the 'fundamental particles' of that system are known. The payoff is very high for those who can see the world as a collection of different parts, so those of us who inhabit industrialized, science-based cultures tend to develop acute perceptions for parts, while neglecting the skill of seeing webs of interactions between the parts.  However, a subtle shift has recently come to the world of scientific knowledge: The notion of whole systems has become fashionable.”I agree with Rheingold, especially when it comes to business. The tendency of business has always been to look at the “pieces” separately. As an example, most businesses treat advertising and sales training as separate departments – pieces – when they’re really just the beginning and end of a single effort at persuasion. Do you distribute copies of your ads to your salespeople on the day the ads are released? If not, why not? Do you really want your customers to know more about what’s going on than your sales team?Compartmentalization is likewise a problem in medicine, causing doctors to treat symptoms instead of the root disease.In advertising and medicine we need to step back and look at a bigger picture.But I believe the opposite is true in the realm of Thought.If you want to craft a message that transfers a thought – whether your thought-carrier be visual, verbal, musical, tactile, olfactory or gustatory – don’t pull back for an overview, but break each element of your message into its constituent components.EXAMPLE: The science of chemistry is a systematic understanding of all the possible combinations of positively charged protons, negatively charged electrons and neutral neutrons. Only after we had deconstructed matter into its constituent components did we learn to design substances with the specific characteristics we desired.Likewise, if we want to1.   craft a thought2.   make an accurate statement3.   transfer a feeling4.   capture a mood5.   paint a picture6.   send a signal or7.   persuade a person, we must create a message with specific characteristics.The lens that revealed the mysteries of chemical composition wasn’t a pull-back, big-picture lens but a zoom-into-the-heart-of-it, detail lens. We had to answer the question, “What is the smallest unit of matter?”Likewise, the emerging science of Thought Particles is built upon the question, “What is the smallest unit of Thought?”At present, I’m convinced there are 12 basic languages of the mind and 12 shadow languages.Think of the first 12 with a plus sign (+) next to them. Think of the second 12 followed by a minus sign (-).Now think of coming to Austin for the Advanced Thought Particles workshop.I may be chasing the mirage of a rabbit through an imaginary forest. But if I'm not, artificial intelligence is right around the corner.Aroooo! Aroo-arooo!Roy H. Williams

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 was socially unacceptable to be a “divorcée.”I say it was good fortune because it was by watching my mother that I learned it’s always too soon to panic, life is what you make it, nothing worth having comes easy. You know the Winston Churchill speech, “Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never–in nothing, great or small, large or petty–never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”I’m pretty sure Churchill got all that from my mom.Those who know me casually assume I’m a sexist pig because I say things like, “You hit like a girl.” But those who know me better will tell you the big decisions are usually made by Pennie, my wife and partner of 30+ years, and another woman, Corrine Taylor, manages the daily operation of all our enterprises.We men tend to be impatient and short-sighted. And we show it by what we write.The male voice in literature is hungry. Climb that mountain. Reach for those stars. Conquer. Subdue. Reproduce. Win.But the literary voice of a woman is quieter, as though she has eyes that see from a greater distance.“What is sure, predictable, inevitable – the one certain thing you know concerning your future, and mine?”“That we shall die.”“Yes, there's really only one question that can be answered, Genry, and we already know the answer… The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.” – Ursula K. Le Guin, from chapter 5 of The Left Hand of Darkness   You might also recall the following passage from a memo I sent you in February:We had come home.We had discussed whether to go out for dinner or eat in.I said I would build a fire, we could eat in.I built the fire, I started dinner, I asked John if he wanted a drink.I got him a Scotch and gave it to him in the living room, where he was reading in the chair by the fire where he habitually sat….I finished getting dinner, I set the table in the living room where, when we were home alone, we could eat within sight of the fire. I find myself stressing the fire because fires were important to us. I grew up in California, John and I lived there together for twenty-four years, in California we heated our houses by building fires. We built fires even on summer evenings, because the fog came in. Fires said we were home, we had drawn the circle, we were safe through the night. I lit the candles. John asked for a second drink before sitting down. I gave it to him. We sat down. My attention was on mixing the salad.John was talking, then he wasn't.–   excerpted from The Year of Magical Thinking (2005), Joan Didion's attempt to comprehend her husband's sudden death after 40 years of marriage.The challenge of a woman is that she's expected to take care of everybody. But who takes care of her?“Woman's life today is tending more and more toward the state William James describes so well in the German word, 'Zerrissenheit: torn-to-pieces-hood.' She cannot live perpetually in 'Zerrissenheit.' She will be shattered into a thousand pieces. On the contrary, she must consciously encourage those pursuits which oppose the centrifugal forces of today…. Solitude, says the moon shell. Center-down, say the Quaker saints. To the possession of the self the way is inward, says Plotinus. The cell of self-knowledge is the stall in which the pilgrim must be reborn, says St. Catherine of Siena.” – Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea, (1955)It is in honor of women worldwide that Wizard Academy is building a landmark bell wall. We hope to have it finished in time for the Wizard Academy Alumni Reunion in October. I’m going to ask my famous mother to come and share a few words. She’ll be followed by a performance from one of the hottest female recording artists in America.Yes, it’s going to be unforgettable.I hope you can come.Roy H. Williams

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 a television series or a movie? That character’s attitude, values, quirks and characteristics were most likely designed by David Freeman or one of his students.His clients are the movie studios and television networks of Hollywood. His students are the screenwriters of the biggest hit shows of the past 10 years.David Freeman’s tested, trademark techniques have now been proven to work just as well for brands as they do for fictional characters.When David called Wizard Academy and offered to teach a class, we took it straight to the major leagues:With no advance notice, we secretly premiered 2 startling days of David Freeman, myself and Shaun Courbat for Kellogg’s, Sara Lee, Chicken of the Sea and a host of other national food brands that gathered in Wizard Academy’s Tuscan Hall. The long and untamed standing ovation told us we had a tiger by the tail.Using countless examples from the rise and fall of popular brands, David clearly demonstrated there are only 3 ways to create a successful brand. He calls these the Brand Diamond, the Emotional Pulsar, and the Co-Created World. Every successful brand was unconsciously built using one of these three techniques. When a brand manager unwittingly removes the magic ingredient, the brand begins to decline.David has taught only one of these three techniques to the movie studios of Hollywood and the video game companies of Japan; the Brand Diamond, (known to the entertainment industry as the Character Diamond.) David saved both of the more advanced techniques for his alma mater, Wizard Academy.On Monday and Tuesday, October 8-9, David Freeman will teach for only the second time ever all three of his proven Blueprints for Branding:1: First you’ll learn to create a Brand Diamond using the “Character Diamond” technique that made David famous. This will enable you to give your brand a third gravitating body with a high degree of divergence and an explicit moment of convergence. (If you have no idea what that means, don’t worry. We’ll explain it in detail when you get here. All you need to know right now is that it’s the one, defining characteristic of every hit song, bestselling novel and blockbuster motion picture that has ever topped the charts.) Simply stated, the character diamond is what makes us return to a thing again and again. It makes the brand, the song, or the character in a book, movie or TV show more interesting.The most successful brands created their divergent diamonds by happy accident. David is going to teach you how to create yours by design.2: Learn how to craft an Emotional Pulsar and your brand will never grow old. It will automatically shift and change with the times, forever in step, always attractive. David Freeman will show you how.3: Learn how to frame a Co-Created World and your brand will personalize itself to every customer. It will mean 10,000 different things to 10,000 different people, but each of them will feel they understand your brand perfectly. And that it understands them, as well.Be ready for interactive discussions and detailed exercises.Participate fully and you’ll leave Austin with1: a dazzling Brand Diamond you’ll be anxious to unveil,2: a plan for creating an Emotional Pulsar,3: and you might even be able to frame a Co-Created World.In addition, I'll do my best to1.   give you a scientific understanding of how brands are built in the brain.2.   explain the mathematical magic of 3rd Gravitating Bodies and demonstrate how they enchant the unconscious.3.   illustrate the four basic business models and point out the strengths and weaknesses of each.4.   show you how to trigger widespread word-of-mouth advertising.5.   prepare you for the core changes that are coming to the marketplace.6.   teach you how to win corporate support for your innovative ideas.7.   tease you with a too-quick glimpse at the 12 Languages of the Mind.This is one of those Academy classes that will leave you with big eyes and your mouth hanging open.We promise to give you a moment to recover before taking the class photo.The best $3,000 you ever spent.It doesn’t get any better than this.We really hope to see you there.Roy H. Williams

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 that's cut for maximum brilliance, even though it's not hard to do.Q: Why would a diamond cutter shape a diamond so it sparkled less instead of more?A: You’ve dug a diamond from the dirt and now you’re going to proportion it. Cut it correctly and you’ll lose nearly fifty percent of the weight. But if you cut the diamond as close as you can to the shape of the original crystal, you’ll lose less weight and diamonds are sold by weight; about 875 thousand dollars an ounce.Like diamond cutters, most of us leave too many words in our ads because we feel they add weight to our message. But you’ll never see your ads sparkle until those excess words are removed.Here’s a before-and-after example of an ad from the newly published 20-Hour DVD series, Interactive Ad Writing. The ad was written by Brian Hagel, a gifted young writer from Saskatchewan:Original Version Before Editing:You see him a block away and you know he sees you too. The night suddenly feels colder, darker, and you curse yourself for turning down this street. The streetlamps cast shadows you never would have noticed if you were walking with friends. The stranger continues to amble towards you; hands inside a long coat. He’s looking at you. He is reading you well, knows you’re scared. You can almost see his chest expand with the knowledge. Seven feet, 6 feet now, you have seconds to decide. You’re close enough to hear his breathing. You catch his eyes and they bear down on you. The sidewalk is just wide enough for you to pass. One foot now, you hold your breath, ready. He looks at you with contempt. With head down, you brush past him, embarrassed. He hops in a car shaking his head. As he drives away you hear something about getting a job. You wish you could. It happens to our homeless every day. Please give generously to your United Way.After Editing:[Notice how the points of the ad are made sharper, tighter, brighter.]You see him a block away. He sees you, too.The night feels colder, darker. The streetlamps cast shadows you wouldn’t have noticed if you were walking with friends.But you have no friends.The stranger continues toward you; hands inside a long coat. He’s looking at you, reading you well, knows you’re scared.You can almost see his chest expand with pride.Seven feet away, you have only seconds to decide. You hear his breathing, watch his eyes bearing down on you. The sidewalk isn’t wide enough.But they weren’t thinking of you when they built this sidewalk.This sidewalk was built for him.One foot away, you hold your breath, close your eyes.Head down, you brush past him, embarrassed. He hops in a fine car shaking his head and suggests you get a job.You wish you could.290,000 Canadians are frightened, homeless and hungry.The United Way can help. Will you help the United Way?Like a well-cut diamond, the edited ad makes sharper points with fewer words.The secret of sparkle is knowing what to leave out.Roy H. Williams

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 22Step 2: Push beyond the boundaries of what’s known.Investigate the unknown. Speculate. Theorize. Experiment. Learn from your mistakes. If you can say only what you’ve read in books, you’re a parrot. Polly want a cracker?Step 3: Speak plainly. Use examples.Clients don’t want theories, they want pragmatic, tested, what-to-do-now advice. The business of a consultant isn’t merely to have opinions, but to sell them. Tell your client what you know and how you know it. Tell them what you’ve seen.Step 4: Consult without pay until someone offers to pay.You’re going to need a day job until folks figure out how good you are. Experience – deep and wide – is essential. If you work really hard and are lucky it'll still be at least 2 years before you begin to gain some traction. Be committed. Don’t worry; just keep getting better. The kings will find you.Step 5: Avoid Fools.Lazy people, dishonest people and impatient people will always find a path to catastrophe. Don’t let them take you down it. Some people are going to fail regardless of what you tell them. Learn to spot them early. Don’t take their money.Step 6: Keep showing up.A consultant is supposed to be a problem solver. Seek out problems and stare into their eyes. Figure out how to defeat them. Be the soldier who runs toward the sound of the guns.Step 7: Don’t become an insider.Only an outsider can be objective. Get too close and you’ll no longer see the big picture, only the details. You lose credibility the moment you begin to look, think and act like an employee.Step 8: Give credit where it’s due.Your client will sometimes have a great idea. Affirm it quickly. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you always have to be the one with the plan.Step 9: Maintain at least 12 clientsYour value as a consultant is that you see more successes and failures than your client. This is why you must consult a lot of different people. If one client ever represents more than 10 percent of your annual income, you no longer have a client, you’ve got a boss.Step 10: Don’t let your alligator mouth overload your mockingbird butt.Clients will occasionally insist that you give them unreasonable assurances. “What can you promise will happen if I do as you say?” Or worse, they’ll frame a problem in such a way that it has no solution and demand that you provide one. These are the moments when you’ve got to speak the truth… and be glad you’ve still got all those other clients.That's all you need to know. Now go do it, and prosper.Roy H. Williams

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 seems sad. Don’t you agree?Firelight is romantic, but why?Add a trace of black to any color and you’ll make it richer, moodier, classier. But do you understand the mechanics of it?The answers to these questions are rooted in the 12 Languages of the Mind. Learn the 12 Languages and you’ll have a finger on the bright white power button of persuasion.Art is usually created through joyous intuition, an egg of talent fertilized by wiggling inspiration. But when it’s the product of cognitive calculation it has the same effect.Wizard Academy teaches you how to do consciously what talented people do unconsciously when they’re feeling inspired.Advertising, interior decorating, military strategies, musical composition, chemical interaction, fine arts painting, effective online layouts and the award-winning recipes of a 5-star chef are merely dialects of the same 12 Languages of the mind.Wizard Academy is a School of Human Communication. If you want to connect more powerfully to other human beings, you need to become a student.The 12 Languages of the Mind will be taught for the first time July 23-25, 2007, to the 14 lucky alumni who contributed $3900 apiece to furnish the 14 rooms in Engelbrecht House, Wizard Academy’s amazing student mansion.The next time the 12 Languages will be unveiled is in September, as part of the newly updated and expanded Advanced Thought Particles class. This September session of ATP will be unique in that it will immediately follow a 3-day Magical Worlds class.My suggestion is that you register for both classes.And if you’re one of the first 14 to register, you’ll get a room and all your meals provided at no charge in Engelbrecht House. (Don’t worry, we’ll alert you if you’re number 15 and give you a chance to reschedule for the next session if you so desire.)Are you going to register now and be one of the first 14? Or are you going to put it off and then try to cajole your way in later? Trust me, it won’t work. First come will be first served. Wouldn’t be fair any other way.Just as a lump of coal becomes a diamond and a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, human persuasion is undergoing its own strange metamorphosis.Are you curious to see what it will become?Roy H. Williams

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 to ignore.Any ad that makes its point sharply will be an irritant.But sharp-pointed ads are also the most effective.2.   It presents a tightly focused perspective.Any ad that makes assumptions about the experiences of the customer will be judged as presumptive. Persons whose experiences are otherwise usually hate these ads.But presumptive ads connect powerfully to customers whose personal experiences are accurately mirrored in the ad.3.   It’s given a lot of repetition.There is such a thing as too much repetition. And the sharper the ad’s point, the less repetition will be required. But “too much repetition” is often the charge that’s leveled against an ad that’s annoying for reasons 1 or 2.“Hello, I’m a Mac.”“And I’m a PC.”Very few people are ambiguous about the “Get a Mac” TV campaign:“Apple's mean-spirited new ad campaign… Ad Report Card Grade: C+… And isn't smug superiority, no matter how affable and casually dressed, a bit off-putting as a brand strategy?” – Seth Stevenson “I don’t know about you but I have had about enough of those Mac TV commercials that consistently rip on Microsoft and the PC. Any company that needs to badmouth the competition in an effort to sell their product is a company I don’t want anything to do with.” – ElectroGeek“The Los Angeles Times has a big article for you about Justin Long, aka the Mac from the 'Get a Mac' ads… [The article goes on to explain that Justin Long is a 'smug little twit.'] Also of note: There are apparently 20 more of these ads in the can, ensuring that everyone will be sick of them eventually.”– Tim Nudd“Reporting a $546 million profit on Wednesday, Apple also said that it shipped over 1.6 million Macs representing over 30 percent growth from the year-ago quarter. According to Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer, this represents the strongest quarter in the company’s history.” – Jim Dalrymple, reporterComplain about me all you want. Just leave the 546 million with my butler at the front door.Are your ads getting complaints? If not, why not?A:  Do you have no sharp points to make?B:  Or are you just afraid to make them?Turn the poles of a magnet North to South and CLICK, they connect. Turn the poles North to North and they'll repel each other just as powerfully. Advertising, like a magnet, is subject to the Law of Polarity: Your ad’s ability to attract customers cannot exceed its potential to repel.Most ads aren’t written to make a point sharply. They’re written not to offend.How are your ads written?Roy H. Williams