There are some things discussed here often enough that you might be sick of hearing about them.

They include:

Stories are important.

Humans crave relationships.

Branding is about customer feelings.

With that...


Cheers!

This morning, these things come to play in the service of wine.

Yes, it’s a little early in the morning to be tippling.

Not too soon to be talking.

At the moment, we’re talking a new, seven-minute film from a Sonoma winery that recently caught my attention.


It tells the story of a woman named Isabelle.

After the deaths of her Italian immigrant father and uncle, Isabelle suddenly found herself running the family’s winery.

Sonoma County in the early 1900s seems a long way away in a time long ago. It’s also a place filled with sweat, struggle, toil, repression, fear and possibly even bloodshed.

This short story focuses on the challenges of an underdog surviving the odds to establish a beloved business of note and acclaim.  

This small, woman-owned operation triumphs over oppressive forces, acts of both man and God, and becomes a celebrated icon of the culture which thrives to this day.


What’s not to love?

Well, let’s see…

The film has a high-quality Hollywood-style feel, so clearly there’s big budget at work here.

Cursory research shows the scrappy young daughter of Italian immigrants ran the winery until she sold it in 1970 to a gentleman winemaker.

In 1981, her winery was acquired by a wine & spirits giant, and then folded into their subsequent luxury brands conglomerate.

Several years later, that luxury brands conglomerate sold Isabelle's little winery to a Fortune 500 company that is one of the world leaders in beer and wine, with 9,000 employees and $7-billion in revenue.


That doesn’t sound so warm and fuzzy anymore, does it?

That said, never let facts get in the way of a good story.

Despite the business transactions she made later in her life, Isabelle’s origin story is focused, human, resonant and fun.

It makes the business seem approachable and worthy of a consumer relationship.

It makes the prospect feel one, significant way about the business.


Yes, the story has been cherry-picked and dramatized for fun & profit.

It has its own magnetism and is appealing.

The storytelling communicates timeless themes.

It positions a glowing halo of brand around a product that might otherwise go unnoticed.


And this style of brand storytelling is entirely scalable.

No matter how small the business or how limited the budget, there is usually a story to be told.

And if that story makes the prospect feel the right way about the business, is it time to tell that story well, in brief, with potency, and with legs?

There is a story that rings of humanity and truth in every brand.

It is incumbent upon us to find that bell, and ring it with definition and clarity for the customer. 
Cheers,

Blaine Parker
Your Lean, Mean Creative Director in Park City

LIGHTNING BRANDING ON AMAZON
The Kindle edition of our new book is now available at Amazon for the bargain price of $19.95.
 
For details about our new Lightning Branding courses, both do-it-yourself and we-do-it-with-you editions, click here. (There's even a video of us!)

The client’s missive popped into my mailbox.

I was concerned.

Had the script done what was needed?

And was he happy?

Not just happy enough, mind you. Was it no-exceptions happy?


He’d know the difference between good and great.

This is a man whose entire life has been big radio. Did my writing render the result he required?

Click.

Read.

“I love the script.”

Phew.


That reaction made the hours sweating over a dozen details of 167 words all worthwhile.

For days, the script had been 97% good.

The last 3% was being a beast.

You keep struggling with it.

Pushing it.

Kicking the thing.

And resisting a change to something you know, deep in your heart, is wrong.


A key word in the copy was “Neuroscience.”

Thematically, this word is the lynchpin for his message about human behavior.

But the two beasty words were: “In action.”

In an effort to emphasize the point that neuroscience is the hero, I had trotted out the phrase “Neuroscience in action.”

Over several days and twice as many tweaked drafts, that phrase began poking at me.


It was not a glaring, “LOOK AT ME!” darling.

Nor was it an error of great and grievous proportions.

But every time I tried to cut it loose, my head kept second-guessing me.

“We need it there. It brings action. Literally!”

The tactical writer inside me kept rationalizing it.

Then, the executioner inside me said, “This must end. Kill it now.”


With a single swing of the ax, those two words rolled away, forever separated from neuroscience.

The prepositional phrase that had been pestering me evaporated with a keystroke.

“Neuroscience” suddenly stood up its hind legs.

It now had gravity.

It brought the force of its own four syllables to poke at the listener’s gray matter and make the connection.

It was now putting the “awe” in authority.

(Did I really just write that? Eegad.)


Anyway, here’s the point for you, the writer who must create compelling copy…

Finding the right word and the right phrasing matters.

It takes time and doesn’t always leap forth from the keyboard as if yet another verbal Athena from the head of a thesaurical Zeus.

Writing well a process.

We can do things to accelerate that process.

But sometimes, we let ourselves stay stuck.


This is why good writing is rewriting.

Solid copy needs the opportunity to solidify.

What seems like cured concrete today can jiggle like unset gelatin tomorrow.

As important as it is to listen to the words, it’s also important to listen to one's writerly superego.

It will say things like, “Is that really right?”

Or, “Should that maybe go?”


Or, “Perhaps we should see how it sounds without that one thorny little oyster of a phrase.

“Maybe the pearl is already out of the shell.”

Whack!

And, voila!

It worked. All of sudden, it was 3% better.

In the aftermath, I was pondering the process of finding just the right word. So I asked Prof. Google.

I typed in, “Just the right…”

And the professor finished the phrase for me.

“Word.”


I was looking to see if there’s any scholarly insight into the kind of wrestling that happens in making the page right, or if I’m just a hardy fool.

Or both.

I stumbled upon a quote from that old, often cancelled rich white guy of immense ego and equally immense support for the common man, the underdog and the worker bee.

Mark Twain said, “The difference between the almost-right word and the right word is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”

Mic drop, Mr. Twain. Thank you. 
Cheers,

Blaine Parker
Your Lean, Mean Creative Director in Park City

LIGHTNING BRANDING ON AMAZON
The Kindle edition of our new book is now available at Amazon for the bargain price of $19.95.
 
For details about our new Lightning Branding courses, both do-it-yourself and we-do-it-with-you editions, click here. (There's even a video of us!)

“Where y’at?” is an old New Orleans expression.

Originally born of itinerant musicians asking each other where they’re playing at, it has evolved from a question of mere place or location to a query of “How ya doin’?” and “How ya feelin?”

Where I’m at is a place of conflictive reflection.


Three days ago, we were at New Orleans.

Things there felt like the daily laidback liquidity of that city below sea level.

It was feeling normal-ish if often masked-ish.

But then, we dipped our toe in at one end of the French Quarter.

Where the Quarter was at felt a little tired and mean.


We were feeling pretty good about other things.

So we pulled out our toe and moved on to those other things, which were happening at a place where the loose and languid stride of The Big Easy seemed as easy as it should.

We also dropped in at a history museum.

That place touts the triumphs of the greatest generation united against an axis of evil in a time when most of this great nation lacked indoor plumbing.

Then, the next day at sunrise, we climbed behind the wheel.


At central Texas urban sprawl, we dared to brave a bumper-to-bumper driving viciousness where an every-man-for-himself ethos seems in full effect.

We were then spit out of the Interstate like a slippery watermelon seed, propelling ourselves onward onto the plains, eventually landing at a little town at a place of cows and crude and little else.

Other than the town, nothing there is little.

It is great and vast and empty and feels as if it’s waiting for something big that may never come, or maybe came and went, or maybe visits every once in awhile. 


At that little town at the little lobby of the big-name hotel chain, there was a feeling of judgment from our fellow guests.

Call it an undercurrent as they regarded us.

Why were these two people who were clearly coming from away wearing masks on their faces?

Some rough-edged Texas gentlemen who drive great pickup trucks and sport mask-free visages in public seemed to have adopted a polarity response to the hotel’s signage proclaiming, “ALL GUESTS ARE REQUIRED TO WEAR FACE COVERINGS.”

It made me wonder what happens at their house if the wife asks an entering guest to remove his boots.

Beneath my mask it was easy to smirk at my own silliness. Nobody would feel compelled to wipe it away.


Yesterday, we stopped for gas at the middle of the Navajo nation in rural New Mexico.

At that place in the high desert, the official name is inspired by long-ago Anglo rulers’ fondness for the greatest sailing vessels of ocean voyages and trans-oceanic trade.

Seems sensible, right?

It’s also hard to not ask where you’re at when pulling your Japanese luxury car up to a pump island surround by creaking, bent pickup trucks filled with the worn, battle-scarred tools for keeping the challenging world of desert commerce on an even keel. So to speak.

Inside a modest mini-mart from a different century, shopworn and clean and threadbare and neat and chipped and tidy and masked and polite and poor and gentle and easy-friendly was the order of business.


Part of me wanted to hang at that mini-mart and know more.

Like, do Navajo travelers use the electronic cappuccino dispensers?

Or are those just for the periodic, Japanese luxury-car driving ramblers passing through this corner of their sacred land dotted with sweat lodges and singlewides?


Now, we are back at Park City.

And Park City is at a place where the order of business is shoulder season.

The tourist multitudes have cleared out. The roads are uncrowded. There are no lines in the supermarket.

Park City is at ease again, if only until the start of golf trout cycling season.

As I write this, the weather’s working at snowing.

Not sure where I’m at.

But today, it’s different here. 
Cheers,

Blaine Parker
Your Lean, Mean Creative Director in Park City

LIGHTNING BRANDING ON AMAZON
The Kindle edition of our new book is now available at Amazon for the bargain price of $19.95.
 
For details about our new Lightning Branding courses, both do-it-yourself and we-do-it-with-you editions, click here. (There's even a video of us!)

Killing a customer with unkindness?

We were just having a conversation with a friend about a book he’d been reading.

He was about halfway through the book, and had an opportunity to meet the author. So, he jumped on it. Why not?

He asked the author a thematic question about something that was happening in the book. The author’s reply?


“Really? You’re asking me about that? I don’t know.”
 
And the author changed the subject.

We asked our friend what he did.

He said, “I was halfway through the book. I closed it, and never picked it up again. He doesn’t care. Why should I?”


When selling any product or service, especially a replicable product like a book, word of mouth is vital.

I’ve had email conversations with various bestselling authors, with names like Connelly, Woods, Stewart and Dugoni.

They’re all gentlemen and happy to have a running conversation via email.

While I can’t speak to their motivations, I’m guessing it’s because now more than ever, every fan is another review and another unpaid salesperson.

The know upon which side their bread is buttered, and who holds the knife.


In a similar but different situation…
 
The Fabulous Honey Parker and I once ate at an excellent restaurant.

We happened to meet the chef, and we told him what we loved about his food.

He told us we were wrong.

Really, he did.  

We decided we never needed to eat there again.  


When you’re not Stephen King but King Stephens, Jr., every fan of your book is a big deal.

When you’re not Ben & Jerry’s but Cranky’s Creamery, every fan of your ice cream is a big deal.

When you’re not Roto-Rooter but Randy’s Rooterette, every fan of your drain opening service is a big deal.

When you’re not H&R Block but Blocky Dodger’s Tax Preparatorium, every fan of your tax prep service is a big deal.


For better or for worse, word-of-mouth advertising is more potent than ever.

Every Amazon review, every Yelp review and every Google review is now added to the normal conversations that people are having.

Add to that the fact that a happy customer is less likely to review something than an angry customer, and the scales are balanced against a business that’s behaving badly, even if they’re doing so for only a moment.

And we’re all just human. At one time or another, we’ve all behaved badly. That requires an ability to recover and spin.

Never blow off a fan. Embrace them. They are the butter on your bread. 
Cheers,

Blaine Parker
Your Lean, Mean Creative Director in Park City
 
LIGHTNING BRANDING ON AMAZON
The Kindle edition of our new book is now available at Amazon for the bargain price of $19.95.
 
For details about our new Lightning Branding courses, both do-it-yourself and we-do-it-with-you editions, click here. (There's even a video of us!)