Marketing Word Of The Word Of The Month Is: “Barcalounger”
Why? I have no idea. It happened spontaneously. Perhaps I was subconsciously craving delightfully ridiculous phonemes. And, of course, this begs the question: What the heck is a phoneme? Phonemes are clearly distinct units of sound that give a word its character. So, bonus Marketing Word Of The Month is “Phoneme.” Two words for the price of one. I am nothing if not a giver. Anyway, by the standard of the Ridiculous Phoneme Test, “Barcalounger” is a clear candidate for MWM. The hard “K” sound. The “lounge” component, which makes you wrap all of your articulators around it with a big, round sound. Say it aloud and proud: BARK-A-LOWN-JUR. All those components! It has presence and power while maintaining a degree of ridiculousness. Yes, presence and power--much like the designer himself, Edward J. Barcalo. The man was a force in business. He founded the company that is his namesake in 1896. In 1916, he became president of the Associated Manufacturers of New York. He registered various patents that demonstrate his capacity for presence and power and ridiculousness. His patent for a bed spring brings with it a certain significant and business-like yawnability. Meanwhile, there’s also Mr. Barcalo’s patent for canned synthetic snow. Three words that have probably never been assembled thusly before or since, “canned synthetic snow” offers the kind of industrious ridiculousness one might hope to see in a man whose heritage product is a lounge chair with a funny phoneme-filled name. “Barcalounger.” It’s a word that became comedy gold for generations of writers, comedians, directors, and other people whose job it is to elicit any reaction on a laughter response spectrum from giggle to guffaw. But the ones laughing all the way to the Barca bank must be Ed’s heirs. One hopes they continue to reap the profits of their elder’s insight regarding the American penchant for supine seating. Say it again. BARK-A-LOWN-JUR! The mechanics of its pronunciation are epic. It ranks up there with “Saskatchewan,” “septuagenarian” and “saddle soap” for its unique musicality, yet stands apart for its utter lack of an “S” and bringing the “kuh” and the “juh.” And sure, this also seems uniquely and fabulously American. But did you know that long before Barcalounging entered the American consciousness, the French were already on the scene? Let’s lounge all the way back to 1850. This is half a century before Edward even considered the business of being a lounging Barcalo. Some industrious French designer person gave the world a steel-framed folding camp device that could be used as a chair, a bed and a chaise longue. (That is not a typo. L-O-N-G-U-E. “Longue” is a French word pronounced “long” and meaning, surprisingly, “long.”) One can only hope that the French camping recliner comes with convenient holders for both the long-stemmed camping wine glass and the compartmentalized camping snail plate. That said, it seems that Americans brought the reclining chair into its own. Two cousins named Knabush and Shoemaker received the first patent on a reclining chair that was the nascent La-Z-Boy. Another forceful gent, Daniel F. Caldemeyer, patented his own chair. It was based on his knowledge of the science of kinetics acquired while serving in the United States Air Force. Mr. Caldemeyer eventually evolved his product into astronomically high-priced chairs for the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs. SIDEBAR: The naming of the various rocket programs after Greek gods makes one speculate. Is there any Greek deism at work in the science of lounging kinetics? And could Barcalounging have been an ancient Olympic sport? So many questions, but I digress... There’s even a Caldemeyer chair bearing the presidential seal in the Smithsonian. Lounging (or longuing, as the French might say) make one long for a simpler, more reclined time. And in these contemporary days of conflict and friction, all these long chairs and ridiculousness beg the question, can’t we all just get a chaise longue? Your Marketing Word Word For The Month: Barcalounger... But, if a French person had invented it, would it be a Barcalongue? Barcalong, would you, mon cheri? 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!) 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!) Why is the word of the month “Apathy”?
I do not know. Nor do I care. See what I did there? No? Oh, well. I’m presently perched upon a chair I do not own. I’m sitting in a VRBO rental on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Outside the window next to me, the bird song is going hog wild. And I don’t even care that the preceding phrase pushes me halfway to a mixed metaphor. Back here in the gnarled old-growth trees beneath a glorious cerulean sky that’s as blue as blue gets until you start paying big money for glorious sapphires the size of paperweights, this hog-wild birdsong glory is free. Free, free, free! Well, it’s “free” in that the VRBO landlord is not charging extra. You still require the credit card it takes to book a Gulf Coast VRBO rental that has old growth trees in the back yard. But I digress. And still, I care not a whit nor a whipporwill. I’m also apathetic that the now-Oscar-winning film Nomadland and the fearsome Frances McDormand do not clearly have an agenda to make Amazon look like The Great Satan of American business. If I weren’t so apathetic, I might care more that Nomadland isn’t even much of a story. But since Nomadland (as The Bard would say) is to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature vis á vis American behavior here in the first quarter of the 21st century where nobody speaks in Elizabethan English any more, I accept Nomadland as art. And art doesn’t care what I think, so why should I waste any energy on the alternative? I’m even apathetic that none of what precedes this sentence makes much sense. But what is apathy? Funny you should neither ask nor care. Apathy is a lack of feeling. A lack of emotion. It is about harboring neither interest nor concern about something. Apathy is a state of indifference. To that, I say, Meh. Much more interesting is that the word “apathy” is derived from the Greek "ἀπάθεια." Does that word even look like Greek to you? It does to me. But that all probably depends upon one’s computer and whether it cares to display characters of the Greek alphabet. But in translation to English and the Latin alphabet (if you care), that word in Greek is “apatheia,” which comes from the Greek root “apathēs,” which means "without feeling." If you remember your “A” prefixes from that day in middle school where you slept through English class, you know but may not care that the letter “A” means "without” or “not." And if you’re familiar with the word “pathos,” which means “emotion,” you might care (or not) to deduce that “apatheia” means "without emotion." Wikipedia (again!) tells us it is important to not confuse the two terms “apathy” and “apatheia.” That’s because somebody was somnambulant at the switch that day in The Clarity Division of the Greek-To-English Root Words Department. They clearly did not care that “absence of emotion” or “absence of passion” in the guise of “apatheia” was used by those laugh-a-minute Stoics to signify a desirable state of indifference towards events and things which lie outside one's control. Can’t do anything about it? Just don’t care! You see, the Stoics believed that their school of philosophy offered monthly subscribers a much better way to live. All things around us are exterior! We cannot control them! Be responsible only for your own representations and judgments! In other words, apatheia is a virtue. But apathy as we know it in our culture is a bad thing. In fact, Christianity decries apathy as a deficiency of love and devotion to God and His works. And that leads us down the slippery slope to Sloth, which (as we all know but often don’t care) is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. So, depending upon your stance, my morning apathy amidst the birdsong here at the edge of a white sand beach in the magnolia state is either spiritually abhorrent or philosophically commendable. Also, you probably don’t care. Good for 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!) “Everybody already knows what we do.”
Unless you are Roto-Rooter, Chevrolet or Hostess, that statement is a bald-faced lie. Please, do not make this mistake born of hubris—a fitting word, as it has its roots in Greek tragedy. In fact, I went to The Source Of All Knowledge, Wikipedia, for a quick lesson in Hubris. Seems it describes the following: …a personality quality of extreme or foolish pride or dangerous overconfidence, often in combination with (or synonymous with) arrogance. The term "arrogance" comes from the Latin adrogare, meaning to feel that one has a right to demand certain attitudes and behaviors from other people. Hmm. I’ve seen that before. That actually describes a whole lot of what has been happening in American politics over the last few years. But for the moment, let’s stick with marketing. The hubris of which we’re speaking regards a kind of attitude that one is immune from doing smart things. For more than a decade, I made my living writing radio advertising for businesses of all sizes, from local garage-door companies to GEICO. Frequently, when an advertiser was struggling, it was largely because they were unbranded. They would invariably be offering a “me-too” parity product or service. There would be no clear brand and no clear way that the prospect was supposed to feel about the business. The solution would be simple enough. I would suggest solidifying the brand position and running a branding campaign that gives the advertiser a higher profile and a clear position. The response was often, “That’s not necessary. Everybody already knows who we are.” That might be one of the most self-aggrandizing attitudes imaginable when you’re the same person who’s saying, “The advertising isn’t working.” In the course of a busy day in a busy life, who can possibly make room for every advertising message from every advertiser who wants the prospect to care as much as they do about what they sell? But, you know what most people can make room for? An advertiser who’s surprising, who commands attention, and who wants us to know what they stand for. If I’m not in the market for a car, your car dealership’s great prices this week only are irrelevant to me. But if you make me believe that your car dealership is like a club for your customers who drop in just to say hi, and you have legions of ecstatic fans up and down the state, I might think, “Wow. I need to go there when I’m ready for another car.” One reason I’m addressing this problem right now is that it’s epidemic across this nation. Having driven several thousand miles in the last three weeks, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this: A big billboard. A silly headline. A visual joke. A non-descript business name. And zero idea of what the advertiser sells, how I’m supposed to feel about them, and what they think they’re accomplishing with that billboard. Saw one today. A silly word. A goofy guy in a superhero outfit. A smiling woman. And no other information. Hunh? There’s a guy in my home state who has billboards with his name and the tagline, “One call, that’s all.” It took me years to figure out the guy was a personal-injury attorney. That’s because I finally saw one of his TV commercials. “But everyone knows what I do. The billboards are just supporting the TV that everyone knows.” Dude, not everyone knows. The irony here is that I’ve often compared an advertisement to an argument in a court of law. Present a case that makes the prospect feel the right way, and they’ll decide in your favor. If your advertising is struggling, or if your client’s advertising is not working, back away from the hubris. Do not end up in a Greek tragedy that ends with a plummet from grace because someone believes they’re above good strategy. Traditional media are struggling. Advertising is a struggle. The world is more competitive than ever. And there is no competitive edge in hubris. Not everyone knows wo you are. But everyone is desperate for something to believe in. 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: Vernacular!
This is the tagline from a roadside advertisement. A local diner boasts: “Where good food originates!” Know what I love about this tagline? The same thing I love about the word “vernacular.” No customer will ever use those words. Never. "Vernacular" is a fancy word for the idea of, “How folks say it round these parts.” The only person I can remember ever using the word “vernacular” was one of my college professors. It was part of his personal brand. He was a little, bald, German man who wore tinted glasses and stank of chocolate pipe tobacco. In his delightful, heavily accented English, he loved to condescend to the lowest of his low-level students for whom who was dumbing down the simplest possible course material. During the course of said condescension, one of his favorite phrases was always uttered with ex-cep-tion-ally pre-cise dic-tion: “As we like to say in the vernacular…” Somewhat later, he was indicted for fraud. But I digress. In advertising, "employing vernacular" is a fancy way of saying, “Speak in the language of your customer.” A roadside diner saying, “Where good food originates!” is like Motel 6 saying, “We illuminate your accommodations!” That tagline was probably written by the owner of the diner or someone near him. This person was probably thinking, “How do I make this thing sound clever?” “I know! We can say that this hole-in-the-wall joint in this tiny town in this cozy corner of Appalachia is where good food originates! Done! Phew! Let’s go get us some griddle cakes!” Line up the competition along the highway and decide for yourself. “America’s diner.” “I’m lovin’ it.” “Be your way.” “Where good food originates!” Nope. Fail. Doing something even slightly better doesn’t require deep thought. Let’s assume we can’t come up with a qualifier more evocative than “Good food.” The client says, "That's what people know us for!" It's non-negotiable. How about saying, “Good food for happy travels.” “Good food, fast and friendly.” “Good food for going down the highway.” “Good food that gets you back on the road.” “Good food for getting where you’re going.” In less than a minute, that’s five possible alternatives. None of them are brilliant. But all of them are (yes) vernacular. That means (ahem) speaking to the customer as the customer would speak. Once upon a time, Honey and I were in one of our favorite small towns in the American south. It’s a simple place from a different time. There was a new restaurant in town, a fancy Italian joint with foodie pretenses. We were talking to a local lawyer friend about this new restaurant. We asked him how he liked it. As he took a tipple from his adult beverage, he said in his inimitable southern drawl, “I believe they are firing over the heads of their customers.” “Vernacular” is a word that fires over the head of the customer. “How we speak” might be on the nose, but it’s clear and it leaves the light on for you. If ya know what I mean. 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!) King of the crumbling road!
In celebration of President Joe Biden’s The American Jobs Plan, a multi-trillion-dollar initiative to restore the nation’s self-esteem through gigantic infrastructure blender drinks, the Fabulous Honey Parker and yours truly are utilizing the original national infrastructure project that helped Make America Great In The First Place. (MAGIFP! Put that on a hat!) We are grateful that this antique infrastructure project has not collapsed enormous Appalachian mountains upon us upon us nor dumped into the mighty Mississippi River. Honey and I are driving cross country on the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. You may know that system by its more prosaic name, the Interstate Highway system. Or, as the kids call it... That crumbling stretch of road to nowhere flanked by endless cornfields. One of the great things about the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways is the examples of advertising genius that it offers us. Billboards, billboards, billboards! The only thing more plentiful than billboards is corn stalks! Advertising greats like Howard Gossage and David Ogilvy were notorious for their hatred of billboards. Yet billboards remain, a scourge, a pox, a blight upon the nation’s countryside. So let’s make the best of them and see what genius they have to offer us. For us, today, it is this tagline that came from a billboard in Somewhere, Ohio. Ready? “We’re good at what we do!” I’d love to tell you what that’s a tagline for. But I can’t. I don’t remember. Neither does Honey. What we do remember is reading it, having a great laugh, and then applying it to every possible advertising campaign we could think of. McDonald’s. “We’re good at what we do!” Ford Trucks. “We’re good at what we do!” Legal Zoom. “We’re good at what we do!” Pampers. “We’re good at what we do!” Though, in fairness, maybe the latter should be, “We’re good for what babies doo!” And this tagline has replaced (at least for the moment) our other favorite, all-purpose tagline, to wit... “It doesn’t smell like urine!” That’s the punchline to a long story of advertising from a long time ago in a land far, far away. Yet, it still resonates for us and periodically makes us laugh because we often exhibit the same, sophisticated sense of humor as adolescent children hopped up on Pop-Rocks and Coca-Cola. But I digress. That notwithstanding, roadside advertising lesson of the day is… If your tagline is so generic that it can easily be applied to any business, it’s not a tagline. McDonald’s. “We’ll leave the light on for you.” Ford Trucks. “We’ll leave the light on for you.” Legal Zoom. “We’ll leave the light on for you.” Pampers. “We’ll leave the light on for you.” Doesn’t work on any of ‘em, does it? But when you apply it to a chain of budget motels with a folksy demeanor, things change. And suddenly, you feel better about that cheap motel. Here’s to feeling better about your advertising and infrastructure and national self-worth in the wake of Easter Sunday. More roadside advertising glee to come… 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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