Big words are fun! Recently, I was reading a marketing agency’s pitch for themselves. It made me scratch my head. Among the first things they say is, “When you want a new marketing firm, it’s important to look for an agency that is entrenched in all aspects of your industry, approaching every project from a fresh perspective.” Here’s the good news: they start by talking about me instead of about themselves. They realize the most important person in the equation is the prospect. The bad news is, they clearly don’t know what they’ve just said. If they did, they wouldn’t have said it. I know what they mean to say. But if they knew what their words really mean, they’d realize it’s not what they mean at all. Phew. Being entrenched is a bad thing. According to Oxford Languages, the definition of “Entrenched” is “of an attitude, habit, or belief that is firmly established and difficult or unlikely to change; ingrained.” In other words, here’s what the marketing agency is saying… “Look for a guy who is resistant to new ideas so you can have new ideas!” And by that sentiment, we have another example of how simple ideas are often best expressed simply. Wanting to write well is good. Not knowing you’re writing bad is a problem. When your business is communication, you need to know the words you’re using mean what you think they mean. Writing about a bad thing as a good thing in a sales pitch looks silly. It could cost big money. Granted, water finds its own level. Someone out there could read that line and think, “Hey, that’s for me!” But look where we are now. We're talking about the problem with the word instead of about the intent. Knowing what your words mean is a good idea. Being word aware matters. Checks and balances are useful. Sometimes it's having someone read what you’ve written. At the very least, using a word that is in any way questionable ought to be questioned. Ask Google. Or Jeeves. Or somebody. Questioning my own usage has saved my pork belly more than once, and I ended up cooking bacon instead. Cheers, Blaine Parker Your Lean, Mean Creative Director in Park City
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User-Car Seduction Beyond The Big Game
A long week has passed since Super Bowl Sunday assaulted our sensibilities with all manner of virtue and villainy for and against advertising. If you read last week’s screed, I joked about Vroom. I stood and applauded them for a commercial that delivers both mirth and message. Then, 12 hours later I couldn’t recall what they do. Well, now I remember. And you know why? Frequency! That combined with a potent message. They’re running those commercials like crazy. There’s the spot from the big game, and now I’ve seen another. The formula is brilliant in its simplicity. They set up a relevant joke. For instance, a guy is being held captive in the car dealership from hell. The salesman looks like the vile antagonist from a Roger Corman B-movie. He jokes that the customer can leave any time he wants (as he chortles and taps together the clamps from a pair of jumper cables that spark and sizzle). Then, the scene flips 180 degrees. The beleaguered car buyer is back home in the sunlight of his front yard with his wife. He’s enjoying a beverage as Vroom delivers his newly purchased used car on the back of a flatbed. CAR BUYER: “Wow, that was painless.” ANNCR: “Never go to a dealership again. Go to Vroom dot com, buy a car, and we’ll deliver it, contact-free.” The setup is funny, showing the dark side you don’t desire. The payoff shows the alternative to the conflict as the easiest, best possible sunshiny day. And that USP? So good. “Never go to a dealership again.” The Vroom tagline is almost invisible. It’s part of the logo. “Get in.” That’s good, too. In funny advertising, there’s a often a disconnect. There’s a vivid demonstration of the bad because the bad is funny. There’s never an equally vivid illustration of the good. Nothing makes you say, “Hey, I want that!” Vroom does it right. “The bad sucks. Ha! See how much more desirable we are? Phew!” And that’s the key: you can see, richly, vibrantly, intensely in mere seconds, how much better the hero advertiser really is. In a jam-packed, affecting and arousing 30 seconds, Vroom hits all the right emotional notes. Vroom turns the key to start the engine on a psychologically charged buying process. They make themselves desirable. And they are buying frequency well beyond the Super Bowl. For Vroom, the Big Game is just the beginning of the long game. The naysayers love to tell you Super Bowl advertising is a waste of time and money. Here's an advertiser who knows how to make it honey. Cheers, Blaine Parker Your Lean, Mean Creative Director in Park City www.SlowBurnMarketing.com www.CoupleCo.com www.LessonsInLightning.com 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!) Several Random Things I Learned Before Super Bowl Halftime
This is the time of year when young men’s minds turn to thoughts of ranting about the the commercials in the Big Game! Not this year. Since this year’s event was so much different by being presented in a stadium filled with super-fan super spreaders consorting with photo cutouts of actual human beings who stayed home and enjoyed the televised soundtrack of crowd noise from Big Games past, we’re going to be different about this year’s screed on commercials. Be prepared. You might decide that you want to quit your job and become a Canadian rapper. Or quit your job as a Canadian rapper and do something else. Then, you won’t have to compete with Drake or The Weeknd, both of whom were very much in evidence Sunday, and are too big for you to ever compete with them. (If you are one of our many friends north of the border who subscribes to the screed, you might wish to become an American rapper who kicks ass and takes names. More on that in a moment.) Here now, a short list of the things I learned before halftime of last Sunday’s game… Logitech makes it clear everybody is a creator. And even if they’re not, they are anyway. Buy more tools and mistake them for talent! Ridley Scott has produced a documentary for YouTube. It is based on the lowest of the low-budget footage possible: cell phone videos from around the world! By the way, Mr. Scott is the man who created the most famous Super Bowl commercial ever, and the one that started the mega-commercial madness: Apple Computer’s 1984. How’s that for irony? CBS is letting us know: The Equalizer is back! Originally an old, rich white guy who's a retired covert ops specialist with a hint of James Bond, he’s returned to network TV as an American rapper, actor, producer and talk show host named Queen Latifah, kicking ass and taking names! Will Ferrell is still ridiculous. On purpose, of course. And he can get away with saying "Damn it!” in a national TV commercial. Raymond James Stadium only looks like an ultra-super-spreader event. I figured that out between commercials. More cutouts. Less behind-a-mask, mouth-breathing madness. Except for the wild cheering and/or booing during the respectful moment of silence for the 400,000 COVID dead. Way to go, America! Thank you and goodnight! The Pringles Super Stack is now a huge deal. In fact, judging from the message, it is far more important than human life or even just doing your job with a modicum of competence. Do Canadian rappers and/or Queen Latifah partake in this processed potato madness? Mountain Dew is now pink. I missed the reason why. Does it have anything to do with supporting breast cancer awareness? Asking for a friend. Oops. Google just informed me that the new pink Mountain Dew product is called “Major Melon.” Unintentional bad joke. Apologies. Using the Indeed app means your job search now comes with a caterwauling soundtrack. Also, the job search in 2021 can mean just rolling over in bed and looking at your phone. Probably can be done from bed with a modicum of competence while Pringles Super Stacking. CAUTION: crumbs in the sheets. State Farm is confusing. Canadian rapper Drake is now inexplicably doubling for the inexplicably new Jake from State Farm. And is being a Canadian rapper in the US now a growth industry? Plummeting fruit causing a guy to ride his bike into a pile of trash bins? Always funny. So is a guy’s head suddenly jammed inside a plummeting bees nest. Slapstick never goes out of style! Another new growth industry: developing dairy-free beverages by squeezing plants and calling it “Milk.” Even though it is not milk. Milk comes from a female mammal or a coconut. SIDEBAR: Does oat “milk” pair well with the Pringles stack? And can Queen Latifah kick its ass? Will Jake, Drake and Will Ferrell just stand by and watch while collecting their SAG residuals? So many questions. Salvador Dali would be impressed by Toyota’s ad agency. Toyota’s ad agency suggested their client make a disturbingly surreal TV commercial and got away with it. (It’s loveable much in the way one loves having woken from a bad dream. Most people were probably freaked out by it. WWRD: What Would Ridley Scott Do?) And speaking of surreal… Turbo Tax and their invasion of the creeping desks makes me scared of them. Salvador Dali would not be impressed. It feels like an episode of The Twilight Zone gone wrong. Yay, Vroom! At almost halfway through the game, Vroom is the first advertiser to both a) get a laugh and b) clearly convey the benefit of their product. SIDEBAR: 12 hours later, I couldn’t tell you who Vroom is or why I felt that way. The advertising lesson here? Most of the time, one insertion does not work without a powerful offer. Most times, repetition and frequency are everything. And finally, no Budweiser commercial clearly does not mean no advertising for other Anheuser Busch products—including, covertly, Budweiser. There were many, many commercials for AB InBev products, including one for many, many of them that tells you it’s not about the beer. Budweiser logos were hidden about like Easter eggs. No actual advertising for actual Budweiser was a canny PR move as well as a useful non-profit investment. Among other things, Budweiser is putting those millions into the Ad Council’s COVID Collaborative efforts at vaccine awareness. And at halftime, I stopped trying to pay attention to the commercials. That’s because I was at a small, COVID-bubble party where nobody cared about the advertising. Every time CBS went to a break, my mask-free friends just began talking about other things. Interestingly, they all kept coming back to the question of whether Queen Latifah could really kick ass and take names. Meanwhile, if you’re looking for me, you’ll find me rolling over in bed and jamming a Pringles Super Stack in the hole while searching the Indeed app for a new job milking oatmeal… 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!) People are often in one camp or the other…
The Anti-Masker Appeal For Fun & Profit!
Like me, you might be a big, hairy, anti-masking man. I’ve been thinking things through. And I want to talk to you about a power we may be missing out on. This power can change lives, make former enemies love us, and give us the ultimate power of persuasion in getting our fellow Americans to believe we’re helping to change the world, even if we’re not. We’re talking about appealing to the Placebo Effect. You and I know the pro-maskers are falling victim to nefarious forces determined to control our brains and democracy for the sinister creep of global socialism and crappy health care. If you’ve ever read about Mary Mallon, she believed something equally nefarious was at work when she was told that she had highly contagious typhoid, and she should take herself out of circulation as a cook inside people’s homes. Typhoid Mary knew better, of course. She was no fool. She infected only 53 people, and only three of those people died. Everyone else enjoyed her mad skills at corned beef and cabbage casserole. She’s so famous as a denier, she's even got her own Wikipedia page. But let’s forget about Mary for the moment. Instead, let’s look at the power of the brain to make people feel better. The Placebo Effect is all the rage right now. You’ve certainly heard about the legendary sugar pill used in Big Pharma medical studies. (Just by the way, Big Pharma does not rule the world, despite what highly reliable sources are telling you on highly reliable social media channels in between adorable videos of kittens with sidearms and photos of Bernie wearing mittens made of recycled plastic bottles.) It turns out that merely participating in a pharmaceutical study, being told what the study drug should do, then being given a sugar pill is potent. It can fool your brain into creating the intended effect of the actual drug. This is placebo in action. Placebo Effect switches on the brain’s neurotransmitters, bringing good feelings about the sugar pill, and lulls the subject into the poetic complacency of actual wellness. This sugar pill makes your migraine melt away! Seriously. This is actual, medical science stuff. People are stupid enough to be fooled into believing a sugar pill is effective medicine and they feel better. That’s the classic situation. There’s a new and exciting placebo for big, hairy fat people like me. You’re not going to believe this one. Ready? Think yourself thin! A new study shows that people who merely imagine themselves exercising are actually in better shape than people who don’t. Have you wanted a Peleton, but the bike is on backorder or otherwise too close to the cost of three mortgage payments for you to feel good about buying it instead of just going running and doing pushups or riding that actual bike that’s already in the garage? Forget about it! Now, I can just think about my husband giving me a Peleton, and I, too, can become an object of interwebs scorn and derision for welcoming inferred fat shaming from my spouse AND be better toned in the process! Placebo ho! Actual exercise be gone! Anyway, despite centuries worth of supposed evidence both clinical and anecdotal, going as far back as the rollicking good times of The Black Plague, we all know the mask is a pointless exercise in preventing the transmission of a potentially deadly disease. The surgeon who cuts us open is wearing that surgical mask only as malpractice suit prevention because in court you can’t say with 100% assuredness the guy on the stand is the same guy who had the scalpel. Kill all the lawyers! But I digress. Let’s forget that. Let’s go placebo! Think of the potent national thought storm that would erupt from sea to shining sea if everyone came together and became unified under the same N95 mask. People’s neurotransmitters would start going crazy! Everyone’s brains would light up and say, “Hell, yeah! We can kick this COVID crap to the curb!” All those at-risk people who are afraid to leave the house would suddenly feel less at-risk--as if maybe there’s some actual hope. Imagine the domino effect! The entire nation could fool itself into eliminating a disease. All those feel-good endorphins and all that dopamine would get busy inside everyone’s system and make stuff happen. And then, the United States would be like weeny little New Zealand, where months ago, millions of people fooled themselves into believing this nonsense and are now running around in shopping malls and hanging out in bars and breathing in each other’s faces like there’s no tomorrow. All that dopamine and all those endorphins go rushing around in our heads and create better moods and more positive emotional reactions and (ready for this?) enhanced self-awareness. Think how thoughtful you might become! Like me, you could win friends and influence people and might even have career potential for the highly profitable diplomatic corps. Because when we start thinking tactically, like “Oh, maybe maskless me has been scaring that old fat man with diabetes and that mother who just went through chemo. I don’t want them thinking I’m Typhoid Mary, even though Mary never wore a headdress like this one made of racoon pelts and buffalo horns,” everyone feels better about things. (I’m now hanging my headdress over the fireplace.) Think about how this impacts the Super Bowl. If everyone gets on the Placebo Effect bandwagon by wearing a mask, Budweiser could turn around and take that five and a half million bucks they’re channeling into COVID-awareness advertising and put it back into a Super Bowl commercial where it belongs. Then, big, hairy anti-masking men like me can get all blubbery over a 30-second story about Clydesdale horses once again making the world safe for puppies and democracy. Placebos. Emotions. Brain chemicals. Moods. Cooperation. Happiness. Happy cooperation has happened before. Americans used cooperation to make this nation great enough to get through World War II. It can work again on this new war. Or I’m not an American. 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!) How To Hate Bird Seed For Fun And Profit
The birds keep thrashing through it and throwing it away. The bigger birds especially. Like the giant jays. They fly up, jump on the little feeding tray, and start flinging great masses of seed everywhere with a maniacal abandon, interrupting their frenzy only when they peck at a morsel that seems to meet their discriminating pallet. The smaller birds are more covert about it. The finches don’t fling as freely. You can see that they’re doing it. But they do it with this delicate, “Who, me?”, behind-the-napkin demeanor that seems so of another time, when we didn’t require Miss Manners to be endlessly pointing out our flaws of social ettiquette. Anyway, all this bustle of activity and flinging at the feeder. What are these birds doing? Is this the avian equivalent of opening the Whitman’s Sampler and flipping over each chocolate, poking a hole in the bottom of each until you find the one that meets your fancy? In a word: Yes. As Mr. Canary could tell me, I’ve bought cheap seed and it contains filler. While I’ve not done a laboratory test to determine the nature of said filler, I have it on good authority (some interwebs expert known to me for a minute or so) that we’re talking about things like cracked corn. Give my birds cracked corn and they don’t care, the crap they fling away! But, watching the birds at work is fun. Never before has this feeder seen so much activity. Ya know what else is fun? That huge pile of seed that collects beneath the bird feeder. That’s because it attracts the ducks from the pond across the way. All those mallards waddle over and pick up that mountain of cracked corn and other detritus. Even more fun is when the neighbor decides to walk his dog. He comes around the corner by the feeder, and the mallards go into a panic, flying off in a frenzy of flapping wings that sound like furious applause from a crazed audience all wearing down mittens. Now that I know why the birds are flinging their feed with abandon, will I replace it with something better? I could. But the better seed costs twice as much. And it’s guaranteed to not generate as much crazed activity. Spending more will diminish the entertainment value. And herein lies a potential sales message using a little known tactic called “exploitable weakness.” We’re not talking computer terminology, where a bad actor finds a flaw in a software system and uses that vulnerability to commence an attack. (I’m not clear on how they attack. Maybe the peck around, flinging zeroes and ones into piles until they find the digits they desire.) In sales, sometimes you’re tasked with selling a product that might seem flawed. But that apparent flaw might have a benefit that can make the item desirable. It just requires a sales perspective that spotlights the benefit in the flaw. Ready? “Hours of entertainment from the cheapest, biggest bag of birdseed! Crazy big activity from all kinds of birds! Finches, jays, mallards and more! Why spend double the price when you can have all kinds of fun for pennies on the dollar!” I wrote that line while standing in front of the birdseed selection at Home Depot. And I sold myself on staying with the cheapest seed. Birds know what they want. And so do I. What’s your favorite exploitable weakness? 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!) Word Of The Month: Patriotism
Welcome to the first installment of Words Good, a marginally enlightened effort at illuminating the use of words that penetrate the zeitgeist like a stake through the heart but without as much of a mess to clean up. This month’s word, “Patriotism,” is being tossed around a lot lately. Interestingly, it’s unclear whether everyone is in concurrence on its meaning. So, what does “Patriotism” mean? We can start with a basic definition stolen straight from the oracle of all that is true because of the zeroes and ones involved: Wikipedia. “Patriotism” is a feeling of love, devotion and sense of attachment to a homeland, and an alliance with people who share the same sentiment. (No, I’ve used not quotation marks on that definition, but again, to be clear: stolen directly from Wikipedia.) I once had the rare fortune to live in the wilds of Los Angeles among the fearsome Hollywood Liberal Elite. These are people who, ironically, consider themselves patriotic but would never call themselves “patriots” because they feel it smacks of jingoism. So now, one must ask: What is "jingoism," anyway? It sounds dirty. Well, it kind of is “dirty.” But not in the sense of getting sent to the principal’s office, or writing lines that say “I will not say ‘jingo’ in class,” or having your mouth washed out with soap kind of dirty. It's more like empirically dirty. To again steal unabashedly from Wikipedia (and know that I do make my annual meager donation to the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, so I hope to receive some special dispensation for that beyond the tax deduction), “jingoism” is a kind of nationalism in the form of aggressive and proactive foreign policy, such as when a nation uses threats or force to protect its national interests. That sounds like something I saw in The Sopranos before James Ganfolfini’s heart exploded on a bathroom floor in Rome. Did he (or Tony Soprano) have a proactive foreign policy? Hard to know. We can’t ask him. Anyway, we never seem to hear patriots talk about jingoism. That might be because, like me, they might fear it sounds dirty, or else they just don’t know what it means. Or both. But back to Word Of The Month: “Patriotism.” Guess what? Americans define patriotism differently than other places. Who saw that coming and waving a flag ahead of it? American patriotism diverges from the European definition of patriotism. And since the US has traditionally diverged from European countries on many things, that’s unsurprising. See also: gasoline prices, the cost of medical care, and cisgender leg hair. The English word “patriot” derives from the Middle French word “Patriote,” which in turn comes from the Late Latin, “Patriota,” or “fellow countryman.” Want more coffee yet? I do. I want French-style coffee. The French make coffee strong enough to make your head fly off. And just by the way, France and America have historically been great allies despite the fact that us Yanquis put ketchup on our fries instead of mayonnaise or Dijon mustard. The French also have something called sauces pommes frites, which is "vaguely béarnaise-like" (thank you again, Wikpedia), and despite translating to "fried potato sauce," it bears no resemblance to the Utah phenomenon known as "fry sauce" which is in no way "bérnaise-like" and more Russian-dressing like, which means like ketchup and mustard whirled together in a bowl, and which could also be the beginning of an international incident. And speaking of international incidents, the French seem to hate the English language and don’t like to speak it because centuries ago, the then conquering English forced them to speak English instead of French. Did the French also have to start calling pommes frites by the word "chips"? Historical records are unclear. Conversely, the English and Americans are great allies because a couple of centuries ago, America sort of kicked the crap out of them. I once witnessed July 4th in the UK. It was very celebratory of us as Americans. I don’t get it. But I digress. None of us (the English, French or Americans) are fellow countrymen, but are we all patriots? Ugh. That word again. Would it please get around to explaining itself? The classic European meaning of patriot is anyone who is a fellow countryman, regardless of socio-economic position. But at one point, the term was applied to Barbarians, who were considered "uncivilized or primitive." The only thing Barbarians had in common with their fellow countrymen was country, and wondering why the New England Patriots couldn’t keep legendary quarterback Tom Brady. Also, it’s ironic that, at one point in world history, it would not have been unusual to hear a castle sentry cry out, “The barbarians are at the gates claiming to be patriots!” But again, I digress. Differences aside, a commonality of patriotism in both America and Europe is a notion of “civic virtue.” For another purloined definition (don’t worry, we will examine “purloined” as next month’s word of the month), “civic virtue” refers to the habits important for the success of a community and the common welfare. Important to note that "civic virtue" is taught mainly in a republic. But in a monarchy, there is no civic virtue. It is preempted by the monarch’s virtue. So patriots are not Barbarians at the gate, but citizens who feel a love and devotion and sense of attachment to a civic virtue for the success of the community and the New England Patriots until Tom Brady starts playing for Tampa Bay. All this just in case you start wondering what the word “patriotism” means when that word starts being overused in various contexts that leave you scratching your head. Word of the day: “Patriotism.” It might also be your can of worms of the day, should you decide to open it. I’m sure it’s now mine. 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!) Often, the things we sell are not sexy.
The words we use to sell them need not be sexy, either. But what those words do require is the ring of truth and trust. Nobody knew this better than a plumber’s kid from the South Bronx. He had a big problem. He had dealt with this problem most of his adult life. Many other people had, too. And when he came up with a solution, he sold it to a waiting nation with a message that rang with truth and trust. IMPORTANT NOTE: He never once used the words “truth” or “trust.” He used plain, simple English. But, not at first. His first effort flopped. His first effort at selling his not-sexy service was done with what many advertising professionals would approve as an aspirational lifestyle message. His first TV commercial featured a tall, handsome, athletic man. This man is shown jogging, playing tennis, riding a horse, and looking very much like nobody you’ve ever known. The athletic man’s hair, in every shot, seems to be blowing in the breeze and looking amazing. While the cameras and crew were shooting this TV commercial, something else happened. It was something inexcusable and frightening. This thing was done by the ad man in charge of the jogging, tennis-playing, horseback-riding message. The ad man came to speak with the plumber’s kid from the South Bronx. This ad man whom the plumber’s kid had entrusted with his message said something like this: “In case this ad doesn’t work, I’d like to shoot footage of you just talking about this.” No handsome man with great hair? Just the business owner? Just talking? So not sexy. Anyway, the message with the sexy, aspirational lifestyle message ran. Nobody called. It was a flop. So they ran the not-so-sexy backup commercial. That was the message with the plumber’s kid and his South Bronx accent talking about his business. That message did something different. It generated over 10,000 calls. This regular Joe looked right at the camera and said a line that became the much-loved punchline to so many jokes on late-night TV. “I’m not only the Hair Club president, but I’m also a client.” The nation lost many notable people in 2020. Sy Sperling’s death did not have the highest profile. But the man whose catch phrase is lodged into the gray matter of several generations serves as an enduring example of advertising at its unvarnished best. On so many levels, the Hair Club For Men advertising is considered bad. And no, it doesn’t rise to the level of art. But what it does do is rise to the level of effective craft. That’s the level where it conveys truth and instills trust. It resonates for a core customer who has a significant problem. It stands as a shining example of how a focused and effective marketing message brings truth and trust. The sexy, aspirational message failed. The plain-spoken, truthful message was explosive. That message helped Mr. Sperling build a business that began in a defunct beauty salon. Mr. Sperling eventually sold that business for $45 million. So the next time the ad isn't working and someone says it isn’t sexy enough... Or if someone says it needs to be funny... Or if someone says it needs to sound more like a commercial... Or if someone says anything that clanks instead of rings, that’s a good time to ask one question… Is it bringing the truth and trust? 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!) "What have I done?"
--Nicholson at the Kwai Bridge Indeed, what have I done? This screed is a mess. It all began with a question: What profound gem of copywriting or marketing can I toss your way as a parting thought for 2020 that will change your life in 2021? And the answer: Probably nothing. You are witnessing the not-knowing of writing a regular weekly assignment in an effort to be useful, purposeful and intentional. Sometimes, this exercise is just hopeless. Go ahead. Leave now. Save yourself. Something I’ve found myself doing lately is thinking back. Not with nostalgia, but curiosity. What writers have made me sit up and take note? What writers have influenced my work in one way or another? They are a diverse and intelligent lot, all smarter than I. Some of them you probably know. Ogilvy. Bernbach. Williams. Godin. Gossage. Well, maybe you don’t know that last one. Howard Gossage is a kind of a cult figure among copywriters. He died too young, but still had a profound impact on ad guys as diverse as Goodby Silverstein’s Jeff Goodby and late, great, Guerrilla Marketing guru Jay Conrad Levinson. But there are other, less likely writers. For instance, there’s the late New York Times columnist, Russel Baker. I was in junior high school when he wrote his column about how to carve a Thanksgiving turkey. His prose made it clear how hysterically funny a newspaper columnist can be--especially when he’s not writing about politics. I also remember the opening paragraph to Baker’s satirical piece about televised sports, titled “Kaleidosport.” “For days, we sat at the box mesmerized by sport. We saw the Mets beat the Nets and the Jets, saw Pancho Segura score a hole in one, and watched thunderstruck as Evonne Goolagong came off the bench in the final seconds of play to whip the mighty Nebraska Cornhuskers with a line drive to center field.” That’s just the beginning. It becomes a lesson in crazy. I remember discovering PJ O’ Rourke, known today as a conservative pundit, via an article he wrote for Car & Driver magazine about competing in an off-road rally in the new Jeep Cherokee. In the article, he touted the joys of packing a suitcase while drunk (when you get to your destination, opening the suitcase is like Christmas). He asserted that while Michael Nesmith has zero skills to offer as a rally competitor, he is an excellent conversationalist, and that was sufficient to put him in the car. And O’Rourke’s saying that a hotel-catering shrimp cocktail looked like “a Sea World exhibit gone horribly wrong” was an object lesson in how a simple line of excess can break up a roomful of people. Sometimes, a writer is sticky for just than a single line. For instance, Carl Sandburg’s “The fog comes on little cat feet.” It’s a seven-word gem that is firmly ensconced in my gray matter. In another life, it might have been good ad copy. It's succinct, crystalline and memorable. David Ogilvy is so very quotable. But from his writing, there are two lines that stick with me as quintessential. One is his classic headline: “At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in the new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.” The other line is an admonition to advertising professionals: “The consumer is not a moron. She is your wife. Don’t insult her intelligence.” Pow! Right in the kisser! (Oh, look. That's a quote from Jackie Gleason.) I can also pretend I read the classics. With that, I will say that Shakespeare has done it for me with one line, but not any of those lines so oft repeated they're now seen as clichés. Instead, it’s Marc Antony’s soliloquy over Julius Caesar’s body: “And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge, with Ate at his side come hot from hell, shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice cry, ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war.” No, it's not a cheery sentiment. But not all writing is cheery. Sometimes, it needs to be potent and powerful. (Forgive me for not writing this in the proper format for iambic pentameter.) An equally sticky, deadly line for me couldn’t be from a more different source. It is said by Charles Bronson in the movie, The Mechanic. [SPOILER ALERT.] Mob hit man Bronson has been training aspiring mob hit man Steve. Steve returns the favor by betraying Bronson and killing him. Steve moves into Bronson’s house. He's now living large on the memory of his mentor. He goes to the kitchen and opens the freezer door. In the freezer, Steve sees a note. Bronson’s voiceover reads: “Steve, if you're reading this, it means I didn't make it back. It also means you've broken a filament controlling a 13-second delay trigger. End of game. Bang! You're dead.” And the refrigerator explodes. Cheery and violent! (Monty Python.) What is the point of all this? Let’s call it a New Year’s Call To Action. Write inspired. And know that you’ll find inspiration in the unlikely places. Read what’s evocative. Find words that make your head explode. When words take you by surprise, ask, “Why?” Obviously, you can't copy it. That's called plagiarism. But you can hold it in your hand like a shiny jewel and raise it up to the light and understand what makes it shine. Even bad craft has value. Sit with a group of friends opening their fortune cookies and you see it in action. as they read their fortunes aloud, each person in the group writes something new based on that little slip of bad copy. There is value in raw material all around you. Be informed by it, and it can inform your writing. And your writing is one thing you do that can clearly set you apart. It will let you raise the bar in your service to others. Being surprising enhances the sell. And in your professional life--maybe even your personal life--the loudest noise will be the electric clock. Bang. You’re living large. Happy New Year. Got a favorite inspiring line? Reply to this email and share it. If we get enough, I’ll compile them for another Hot Shots. 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!) Making Writing Fun Again--If It Ever Even Was...
Writing with pen and paper. Is it like composing on a piano or guitar instead of a synthesizer? Pounding the keys or plucking the strings instead of turning knobs and flipping switches? I started writing this screed on a computer. How ironic is that? And how much more vital will this missive be made by switching over to the implements of our forebears, replacing the prattle produced in zeroes and ones with the prattle of pen and paper? Maybe not at all. Maybe it’ll still be drivel. But, all this to say… This Christmas, Give Yourself A Writer’s Gift You find yourself writing a lot--or, at least, writing more than you want to be writing. And staring at that blank Word document in the computer sucks out loud. (There. I said it.) I know the feeling. I’ve also been doing something about it. You can, too. It requires giving yourself a gift. It doesn’t have to be expensive (though it can be). It can also change a lot about the way you connect with what you’re required to write. In fact, it might make writing feel like a pleasure again--or maybe even for the first time ever. It’s also going to sound stupidly simple, even ridiculous. You might even hate me for this. Ready? Buy yourself a good, small notebook and a good pen. Then, find yourself a good place for sitting. And writing. My reference standard for writing materials are a grid-lined A4 Moleskine notebook (that’s about 5 x 8 inches) and a Waterman Hémisphère pen with a rollerball cartridge. (The smaller Moleskine is great for carrying in a pocket or purse, and you get to feel like you’re one of those Lost Generation writers cruising the Left Bank.) Yes, a Moleskine and a Waterman together can set you back about 80 bucks. But they’re special. With them, you develop a different kind of connection. You almost feel like you’re sitting in Les Deux Magots across the room from F. Scott as you scribble your next sales sonnet for the new ad campaign. That said, a simple ballpoint and a good Moleskine knockoff can be had for about 15 bucks, and can still make you enjoy what you’re doing with them. So can the venue. In the house, I have a new writing spot. It’s a club chair with a reading lamp and a side table. On the table are two generic ballpoints and four notebooks. When I wake up at 5am, which happens often, I brew up a French press full of Italian roast from an American purveyor (all without creating an international incident), and I sit in the early morning darkness beneath the ring of light from the reading lamp to scribble and scrawl. (My handwriting sucks.) Sometimes, as this morning, I’m making notes for my next non-fiction book. That happens in a Moleskine knockoff that came from Walmart. The notebook was about six bucks. The ballpoint was free. And the resulting verbal pearls are priceless. (IMHO. YMMV. AIPW.)* Other times, I’m reading a book about the anthropology of music and finding parallel inspiration for the creative and psychological processes as they pertain to branding. That writing is happening in a proper Moleskine that I bought years ago, and has been sitting on a shelf, waiting for a little attention. Some mornings, I whip out another Moleskine that’s filled with notes about clients and branding and ads and--yes--drafts for this screed. (!) One notebook is a gratitude journal. As something of a comedian and cynic, this is not an exercise I ever saw coming. But enough intel about this thing called gratitude journaling keeps finding me that I decided to take a crack at it. Who knows? Maybe it’s making me a better person. At the very least, it’s going to give me something else to joke about. Once upon a time, when I was doing stand-up comedy, I was branded as a low-rent Dennis Miller. If this can’t fix that, it can make me more low-rent than I was before. But why does any of this make a difference? It’s the power of pen over Pentium. There’s a connection between your brain, your hand, the pen and the paper that cannot be replicated with a keyboard and screen. Don’t get me wrong. I’ll never give up digital media. They’re here to stay, and they’re a necessary tool. But I find that I’m writing better when sitting alone with the organic components of writing as it used to be. Science also offers insight to back us up on this. Writing with pen and paper engages more of your brain. It excites your Reticular Activating System, which is like the CPU for the computer that is your very being. Everything lights up and comes alive. Writing with pen and paper can establish a more profound emotional connection between you and your reader. You also gain better recall of what you’ve written. Bonus: you’re not distracted by the computer’s siren song to check the headlines or read email. Is it time to turn over a new leaf--literally? Maybe. I know I’m enjoying the process more when I'm away from the computer. My time alone under the light with the pen and paper is visceral in a way computers can’t be. I think about the late, great Hal Riney, who wrote some of his legendary advertising on notepaper in a bar. Some great writers of the Lost Generation used pen and paper. Hemingway used a blank page and a stubby pencil. James Patterson and Stephen King write longhand. Quentin Tarantino, Joyce Carol Oates, Amy Tan and George Clooney are all analog lettering Luddites. Even JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter novel was written by hand. Yes, she was too broke to afford a typewriter or a computer. But if she had used one or the other, how would it have changed the nascent genius that has turned her into one of the wealthiest people on the planet? Want to feel the tiny thrill of wordsmithing that's more exciting and impactful than you expect it to be? Try a good pen and a good notebook. There’s all kinds of scientific evidence to back up the power of analog instruments. And the emotional significance of that special place where you can compose might even make you look forward to the blank page each morning. And if you decide to try this, let me know how it goes for you. I’m curious to hear about your success. Belated Happy Hanukkah. Merry Christmas. Happy Kwanza. Happy National Cookie Exchange Day. Whatever you’re celebrating, have a fabulous holiday. *In My Humble Opinion. Your Mileage May Vary. And It Probably Will. 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!) |
AuthorBlaine Parker is prone to ranting about any and all things related to brand. In many ways, he is a professional curmudgeon. While there is no known vaccine for this, the condition is also not contagious. Unless you choose it to be so. Archives
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