Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

I did a bad, bad thing.Last week's memo ended too abruptly. “Yes, selling to men can be very easy. But how does one sell to women? Ah. That is a different question. – Roy H. Williams” The phrase, “sell to women?” was hyperlinked to additional information. Judging from the record number who clicked that link, What Women Really Want remains one of the great, unsolved mysteries of man.The hyperlinked phrase, of course, took you to the course description for Michele Miller's class on marketing to women. Those who clicked her free, streaming video found the answer. But for rest of you, my cliffhanging question remains unanswered.Allow me to rectify.Women want connectedness.John Donne wrote in 1624, “No man is an island.” But I disagree. Men are very often islands – voluntarily solitary. But I would agree that no woman is an island. Women are the connected ones, the glue, the binding agents in every family, whether a family by genetics or a family by choice. Women are the bringers of Together.“Men use language to establish status. Their measurements are up and down. 'What do you think of me now that I've said this? Am I up or down? Up or down?' But women use language to establish bonds of connection, near and far. 'How close are we now that I've said this?'” – Dr. Nick Grant, adjunct faculty, Wizard Academy“What a woman wants is someone who will listen to her.” – Donna Pinciotti, on That 70's Show, explaining why a beautiful girl canceled her date with Kelso to go out with Fez instead.In the world of women, what is romance but a thousand points of connectedness? Listen, men, and learn.My mother taught me all this when I was thirteen. She probably didn't think I was listening at the time, but it was one of those moments when that strange camera in my brain went “click.” “What a woman wants,” she told me, “is to know in her heart that someone considers her the most important thing in the world.”Study aberrant human behavior and you'll find that mass murderers are always men. Crazy women don't kill strangers. They have no connectedness with strangers. Crazy women kill their children.The cognoscenti will recall my comments on brain lateralization: “In Myers-Briggs terminology, the left-brain preferences are E,S,T, and J. The right-brain preferences are I, N, F, and P.” The left-brain is considered to be the masculine hemisphere; deductive reasoning, up or down. The right-brain is the feminine, intuitive hemisphere; pattern recognition, points of connectedness.Aha.Roy H. Williams

“The whole nature of man presupposes woman, both physically and spiritually. His system is tuned into woman from the start.” – Carl Jung, Two Essays in Analytical Psychology“What can a man say about woman, his own opposite? Woman always stands just where the man’s shadow falls, so that he is only too liable to confuse the two. Then, when he tries to repair this misunderstanding, he overvalues her and believes her the most desirable thing in the world.” – Carl Jung, Women In Europe“I think the idealization of women is indigenous to men. There are various ways of idealizing women, especially sexually, based in almost every case on their inaccessibility. When a woman functions as an unobtainable love object, she takes on a mythical quality. You can see this principle functioning as a sales device in advertising and in places like Playboy magazine. Almost every movie you see has this quality, because you can’t embrace the image on the screen. Thousands of novels use this principle, because you can’t embrace a printed image on a page.” – James Dickey, Self Interviews, p. 153In New York Harbor stands a lady. And a stone woman holds the scales in front of every courthouse in the land. And we conjure these twins by name with every dying breath of our Pledge of Allegiance, “…with Liberty and Justice for all.”Airplanes, ships, cars and guitars are given feminine names. If a thing is beautiful and important and precious to us, we always see it as a woman.When a man buys a diamond, he’s paying for the reaction of the woman he loves. He’s paying for that look on her face. He doesn’t care about the properties of the diamond itself; color, cut, clarity and carat weight. He cares only about the woman. In your ads, don’t make him imagine the sparkle of the diamond. Make him see the sparkle of the woman.Yes, selling to men can be very easy.But how does one sell to women?Ah. That is a different question.Roy H. Williams

The price of making a powerful statement is cheap compared to the cost of ads that don't work. So make a statement that counts. This is the best advice I can give you.I'm not talking about making a grand and sweeping claim, such as, “Lowest prices anywhere. We won't be undersold.” No one believes hype anymore. I'm talking about a statement that is bona fide, no loopholes, easy to experience. And it only takes one such statement to put a business over the top. This is why you should designate a percentage of your ad budget to purchase word-of-mouth advertising.Word-of-mouth is credible because a person puts their reputation on the line every time they make a recommendation. And that person has nothing to gain but the appreciation of those who are listening. What are you doing to make sure your potential ambassadors feel secure? What are you doing to trigger word-of-mouth?1. Word-of-mouth is triggered when a customer experiences something far beyond what was expected. Slightly exceeding their expectations just won't do it.2. Don't depend on your staff to trigger word-of-mouth by delivering “exceptional customer service.” Good service is expected. It's bad service we talk about. Great service can increase customer retention and generate lots of positive feedback to the business owner, but rarely is it the basis for word-of-mouth advertising.3. Physical, nonverbal statements are the most dependable in triggering word-of-mouth. These statements can be architectural, kinetic, or generous, but they must go far beyond the boundaries of what is normal.4. BUDGET to DELIVER the experience that will trigger word-of-mouth. Sometimes your word-of-mouth budget will be incremental, so that its cost is tied to your customer count. Other times it will require a capital investment, so that repayment will have to be withheld from your advertising budget over a period of years. The greatest danger isn't in overspending, but in under spending. Under spending for a word-of-mouth trigger is like buying a ticket halfway to Europe.5. Don't promise it in your ads. Although it's tempting to promise the thing you're counting on to trigger word-of-mouth, these promises will only eliminate the possibility of your customer becoming your ambassador. Why would a customer repeat what you say about yourself in your ads? You must allow your customer to deliver the good news. Don't rob your ambassador of their moment in the sun.Your word-of-mouth trigger can be architectural, kinetic, or generous.1. Architectural: This can be product design, store design, fantasy décor, etc. The piano store that looks like a huge piano, with black and white keys forming the long awning over the long front porch. The erupting volcano outside the Mirage in Las Vegas. A glass-bottom floor that allows customers to see what's happening far below them. Do you remember when McDonalds began building playgrounds attached to all their restaurants? It worked like magic for 20 years.2. Kinetic: Activity. Motion. “Performance” by every definition of the word. The tossing of fresh fish from one employee to another at Pike Place Market in Seattle, (the inspiration for FISH!, that bestselling book and training film.) The magical, twirling knives of the tableside chefs at Benihana. Kissing the codfish when you get “screeched in” at any pub in Newfoundland. (A screech-in is a loud and funny ceremony where non-Newfoundlanders down a shot of cheap rum, repeat some phrases in the local dialect, and kiss a codfish. Everyone who visits that wonderful island returns home with a story of being “screeched in.”) While it may at first seem like a staff-driven, kinetic word-of-mouth trigger is a violation of number 2 above, “Don't depend on your staff,” it's really not. A staff-driven kinetic word-of-mouth trigger is constantly observable by management. It isn't a “customer service” experience delivered privately, one on one. Extraordinary product performance is another kind of kinetic trigger. If a laundry detergent dramatically outperformed all others, its performance would likely become a kinetic word-of-mouth trigger. But remember, slightly exceeding customer expectations is usually not enough.3. Generous: Extremely large portions in a diner. Oversized seats on an airplane. Are you willing to become known as the restaurant that allows its guests to select – at no charge – their choice of desserts from an expensive dessert menu? You can easily cover the hard cost of it in the prices of your entrees and drinks. Flour, butter and sugar are cheap advertising. Are you the jewelry store that's willing to become known for replacing watch batteries at no charge, even when the customer hasn't purchased anything and didn't buy the watch from your store? Word will spread. And batteries cost less than advertising. Why sell them for a few lousy dollars when they're worth so much more as a word-of-mouth trigger?Architectural, kinetic, generous: these are the flour, butter, and sugar of effective word-of-mouth. What can you make from these ingredients? Will you put their rich taste into the mouths of your potential word-of-mouth ambassadors? Or will you make ambiguous claims in your ads and hope that people are willing to believe them?Roy H. Williams

We're building a school of the communication arts. Do you want to come along?Oh, the questions we'll answer together! The interesting things we'll find! We've built a chapel where we can think big thoughts. And a grand auditorium where we can exchange ideas. The things we'll talk about!We need only a place to lay our heads when day is over and twilight darkens and campfires dim and talk is done. Will you help us build this place?The Mainstream Many saw only rickety old windmills and a delusional old man. But Don Quixote saw defiant giants that had to be defeated for the good of the world.“What giants?” said Sancho Panza.“Those you see there,” answered his master, “with the long arms, and some have them nearly two leagues long.”“Look, your worship,'' said Sancho. “What we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the vanes that turn by the wind and make the millstone go.”“It is easy to see,” replied Don Quixote, “that you are not used to this business of adventures.”– Don Quixote, 1605, by Miguel de CervantesI can relate to Don Quixote, can't you? Like him, I often feel that no one else sees the ugly giants that loom so large on my horizon. And like Quixote, I'm often told I'm delusional and irrelevant.But the giants I see are real.The Mainstream Many believe that all is well, education isn't broken, journalism hasn't lost its way, music and literature and art were never really important, and traditional advertising is working just fine. “All is well,” the many tell us. But when you look again with the eyes of your heart, you'll see a nation growing dumber, journalism becoming propaganda, art fading into yesterday, and advertising working less and less well.There are currently 30,299 readers of these Monday Morning Memos who see the same giants I see. And together we're building Wizard Academy, a school of the communication arts. Our goal is to enhance the world's ability to communicate. I'm not talking about inventing new devices to help us reach each other. We already have those. I'm talking about knowing better what to say through this vast megaphone of technology. And how to say it better.The citizens of the world have been handed cell phones and DVRs, satellite phones and Skype, websites and blogs, email attachments and streaming video and podcasting and Boomerang. We are children with loaded guns. Do you remember when terrorists beheaded an American and streamed his murder onto the internet? Millions of curious voyeurs witnessed it on their computer monitors. How many of those do you suppose were 8 year-olds who will forever carry the itching scab of that wound in their minds? No, don't tell me it was the same as in video games. Even 8 year-olds know that video games aren't real.He was wearing an orange jump suit.Can new messages be created to counteract that message? I believe they can. The next 3-day Magical Worlds Communications Workshop is scheduled for Dec. 6-8 at the new, 33-acre campus of Wizard Academy. You really should come and spend time with us.Maybe we're crazy, tilting at windmills. Maybe we're defeating giants. You decide.Roy H. Williams

How many months has it been since you went looking for information in the yellow pages? How many minutes has it been since you asked your favorite search engine?I think you just answered the question about whether or not your local business needs a website.Without a doubt, websites are the most overlooked vehicle of advertising for small, owner-operated businesses. Every retailer needs one. Every dentist, lawyer, accountant and minister needs one. Every café, restaurant, coffee shop and nightclub needs one. Every wholesale supply company needs one.I'm not suggesting that all these need to accept online orders and actually transact business online. I'm just saying that everyone listed in yesterday's yellow pages needs to be available on today's internet. It's where your customers expect to find you.Properly constructed, a website allows your prospects to gather information from the privacy of their computer monitors. What are the questions you answer every day? And what, exactly, do you say to customers when you're speaking to them face-to-face? This is exactly the information that needs to be available on your website.Think of your website as a relationship deepener, a half-step between your advertising and your front door.Do you suppose it's easier:(1.) to convince customers to visit your website, or(2.) to convince them to get in their car, drive to your store, park that car and walk in your door?Additionally, internet is heaven-on-earth for the 49 percent of our population that's introverted.Introverts prefer to gather information anonymously, unlikely to dial your telephone number except as a last resort. Even more unlikely is that they'll choose to walk into your store and engage a chatty salesperson. But don't think introverts are shy. They simply like to gather the facts before putting themselves into a position where they're likely to be asked to answer questions. Forty-nine percent of your customers prefer to know what they're coming to buy before they walk in your door. And even the extraverted, chatty 51 percent will appreciate an informative website that functions as an expert salesperson during the hours you're not open for business.Don't think for a moment that your customers aren't already online.Every time a client tells me their customers are too old, too monied, or too traditional to be online, I immediately gather a crowd of them and ask, “How many of you have used a search engine in the past 7 days to research a product or service you were considering?” I raise my own hand.The hands raised in echo are never less than 85 percent of the crowd.Launch a website. Make it interesting. And watch your in-store sales begin to climb.Roy H. Williams

Mabel is a widow deep in poverty with two hungry children of her own. Washing other people’s laundry ten hours a day, Mabel earns barely enough money to keep them fed. To keep a roof over their heads, she works for a real estate man who moves her and the children from shack to shack “to clean them up and make them salable.” But poor though she is, Mabel can’t watch a baby go unloved, so she makes room in her home and her heart for Jimmy, an abandoned baby that was left on her doorstep.Throughout his childhood, Jimmy will wear old, second-hand clothes because that’s the best Mabel can do. His shoelaces will be broken and knotted. He’ll never own a pair of skates, a bicycle, a baseball glove or a toy of any kind. But when his little town opens a public library, he and a girl named Margaret will be the first in line to receive library cards. One day, as the pair are searching for books they’ve not yet read, the librarian says, “Goodness, Margaret and Jimmy, I believe you’ve read all the children’s books we have! If you wish, you can start on the other shelves.”Margaret Mead will grow up to author 20 books and serve as president of a number of important scientific associations, including the American Anthropological Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She will receive 28 honorary doctorate degrees from America’s leading universities and in 1978, be given the Presidential Medal of Freedom.As an adolescent, Jimmy hitchhikes his way from Pennsylvania to Florida and back again with only 35 cents in his pocket. By the time he graduates from high school, he will have visited all but 3 of the 48 contiguous states. In the Navy, Jim rises to the rank of lieutenant commander, serving on some 49 different islands in the South Pacific during World War II. Each night, he writes his thoughts and impressions in a journal.“Sitting there in the darkness, illuminated only by the flickering lamplight, I visualized the aviation scenes in which I had participated, the landing beaches I’d seen, the remote outposts, the exquisite islands with bending palms, and especially the valiant people I’d known: the French planters, the Australian coast watchers, the Navy nurses, the Tonkinese laborers, the ordinary sailors and soldiers who were doing the work, and the primitive natives to whose jungle fastnesses I had traveled.”The book that will emerge from Jim’s journal will be published as Tales of the South Pacific and win the Pulitzer Prize in 1948. And by the time he’s done, James Michener will have written more than 40 books that will collectively sell more than 100 million copies. He will be granted more than 30 honorary doctorates in 5 fields and receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977. His cash donations to public libraries and universities will exceed 117 million dollars.It seems a child can learn a lot by just reading.Roy H. Williams

No one wants to be average. But everyone wants to be normal.What's up with that?You can't imitate your way to excellence. It can be achieved only by breaking away from the pack, abandoning the status quo.But breaking away from the pack is also the way to spectacular failure.Are you beginning to understand why there is so little excellence in the world?A weird person who succeeds is called eccentric. A weird person who fails is called a loser. Most people just walk the middle path and wonder what might have been.If there is, somewhere, a Book of Days, what will be written in it about you? Will the book say you played it safe, never took a chance and were buried in such-and-such a place?I think Tom Peters gave excellent advice to managers when he said, “Reward excellent failures. Punish mediocre successes.”The New York Times tells us, “She embarked on a show-business career at 15 by going to Manhattan and enrolling in John Murray Anderson's dramatic school. From the first, she was repeatedly told she had no talent and should return home. She tried and failed to get into four Broadway chorus lines, so she became a model for commercial photographers. She won national attention as the Chesterfield Cigarette Girl in 1933. This got her to Hollywood as a Goldwyn chorus girl. For the next two years she played unbilled, bit roles in two dozen movies. She then spent seven years at RKO, where she got leading roles in low-budget movies. But she was wrongly cast and mostly wasted in films.”In all, Lucille Ball appeared in 72 B-movies before she became too old to be credible as a female love-interest. Her lackluster career on the silver screen ended without fanfare in 1948. So at the age of 37, Lucy left the movies, swallowed her pride and became Liz Cooper on the live radio show, My Favorite Husband.Jess Oppenheimer, her director, tells the story. “I remember telling Lucy, 'Let go. Act it out. Take your time.' But she was simply afraid to try. So one day, at rehearsal, I handed Lucy a couple of Jack Benny tickets. She looked at me blankly. 'What are these for?''I want you to go to school,' I told her.It did the trick. When Lucy came into the studio for the next rehearsal, I could see she was excited. 'Oh my God, Jess,' she gushed, 'I didn't realize!'She just couldn't wait to get started trying out the new, emancipated attitude she had discovered. On that week's show Lucy really hammed it up, playing it much broader than she ever had before. She coupled this with her newfound freedom of movement, and there were times I thought we'd have to catch her with a butterfly net to get her back to the microphone. The audience roared their approval, and Lucy loved it. So did I.”Released from her fear, Lucy Ricardo had been born.In 1951, a middle-aged Lucy leaped out from our black-and-white television screens into every living room in America. “To say that Lucille Ball was a phenomenon is an understatement. Through sheer determination and hard work, this one woman fundamentally changed the broadcast industry forever.” – Susan Lacy, winner of 5 Emmys as executive producer of American MastersMost people, when they finally become successful, become conservative. Fearful of losing what they've gained, they abandon the behaviors that brought them success. But not Lucy. As the fearless owner of Desilu Studios, she took two enormous chances: Star Trek and Mission: Impossible. American television would never be the same.On April 27, 1989, the New York Times ran her obituary. Its last few sentences were these:Addressing a group of would-be actors, she said the best way to get along with tough directors was “don't die when they knock you down.” She said she was very shy at the start of her career, but overcame it when “it finally occurred to me that nobody cared a damn.”Associates called Miss Ball self-reliant, sympathetic and sometimes tempestuous. ''Life is no fun,'' she once said, ''without someone to share it with.''Miss Ball is survived by her husband, her daughter, her son and three grandchildren.Funeral plans were incomplete last night.Lucille Ball failed often and well, seeing failure only as a form of education. She broke the old rules and wrote new, redheaded ones, inspiring you and me to do the same.When you leave behind a legacy of courage, are funeral plans – or even funerals – ever really “complete?”Roy H. Williams

Relentless repetition was once enough to drive your message home. But it isn't quite that simple anymore. The impact of your message in this over-communicated hour depends largely on the structural basis of your statements.A statement is either fact-based or values-based.A fact-based statement must be true or false. If true, it is a correct statement. If false, it is incorrect. But it is a fact-based statement either way.Fact-based statements can be proven or disproven objectively. They cannot, by nature, include opinion. But the 'truth' of a values-based statement hinges on agreed-upon values. Consequently, values-based statements have the look and feel of fact-based statements to persons of the same opinion.“Our parking lot has spaces for 38 cars” is a fact-based statement. It can be proven or disproven objectively. Just count the spaces. Personal values and opinions don't matter.“There's always plenty of parking” is a values-based statement. (How much parking, exactly, is 'plenty'?)“D-color diamonds are more rare than J-color diamonds,” is a fact-based statement.“D-color diamonds are more beautiful than J-color diamonds,” is a values-based statement. (And in my opinion, entirely untrue.)“The Academy Reunion and Open House is October 15 on the new campus of Wizard Academy,” is a fact-based statement.“We've planned some fabulous surprises for you,” is values based.“Iraq has weapons of mass destruction” is a fact-based statement.“Saddam Hussein is a bad ruler” is entirely values-based.Calm down. I use that example only to illustrate how quickly disagreements can arise over statements that are values-based.Modern advertising overflows with values-based statements: “Big selection.” “High quality.” “Low prices.” “Easy credit.” Even though these statements may be true in the mind of the advertiser, the public has heard them all before.The left hemispheres of our brains detect fact-based statements and prefer them to statements that are values-based. Having been suffocated by hype for the past 40 years, we hunger today for statements of fact.Seven years ago I wrote a chapter called The 12 Most Common Mistakes in Advertising. Among those mistakes was, “4. Unsubstantiated claims. Advertisers often claim to have what the customer wants, such as 'highest quality at the lowest price,' but fail to offer any evidence. An unsubstantiated claim is nothing more than a cliché the prospect is tired of hearing. You must prove what you say in every ad. Do your ads give the prospect new information? Do they provide a new perspective? If not, prepare to be disappointed with the results.” Today I accelerate that statement: If you would persuade today's hype-resistant customer, you must learn to make fact-based statements in your ads.Specifics are more believable than generalities.Roy H. Williams

Do you want more free time? Then you must buy it. Free time is never free.There are only four ways you can buy free time:1. Work fewer hours. Learn to say no. You'll have more free time immediately.Cost: Lost opportunities, reduced income.2. Develop systems, methods and procedures that save time.Cost: Time and money spent in developing those systems, methods and procedures.3. Recruit, hire, train and manage other people to do your work for you.Cost: Time and money spent in recruiting, hiring, training and managing.I heartily recommend these three methods. But I recommend against number four:4. Be the recipient of a large inheritance or insurance settlement, win the lottery, marry a rich person.Cost: Loss of identity, loss of self.That last statement will surely win me a flurry of emails from angry “happy people” who married someone rich. “How dare you say that! I married a rich person and my life has been full and complete.” Okay, so you're the rare exception. But I'm sure you'll agree that money is an insulator. It shields us from problems, and perhaps that's good. But it shields us from challenges as well. Money is the glove that keeps us from feeling the texture and ripples of life.Nothing is so rewarding as making a difference. Especially when it involves self-sacrifice. But when a challenge can be overcome by the mere stroke of your pen, the reward always seems less intimate. Is this perhaps what Jesus meant when he said, “Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven?” (Note to Anxious Expositors: that question was rhetorical. I'm not really asking what Jesus meant, okay?)In the tenth chapter of Mark's history, a wealthy young man asks Jesus how to receive life. Mark tells us, “Jesus looked at him and loved him.”Okay, so far so good. Jesus really likes this guy and wants to help him experience the visceral joy he craves. “One thing you lack,” Jesus said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and come, follow me.”Mark reports the young man walked away sad. Removing the glove of wealth was, for him, a price too high to pay for joy.Please note that neither Mark nor I are insinuating that it was the young man's moral duty to liquidate his holdings. Jesus was merely pointing out the high emotional cost of wearing the glove of wealth.What's my point? Only this: excitement and reward exist only outside your comfort zone. You'll experience neither of them until you make yourself do something you really don't want to do.So what is it that scares the hell out of you?Roy H. Williams

We Baby Boomers had beautiful dreams back in the '60s and '70s, but we didn't do much about them. It was enough back in those days just to “Visualize World Peace” and sing wistfully about a brighter tomorrow. Remember John Lennon's song, Imagine?Imagine no possessions.I wonder if you can.No need for greed or hunger,A brotherhood of man.Imagine all the peopleSharing all the world…You may say I'm a dreamer,but I'm not the only one,I hope some day you'll join us,And the world will live as one.But dreaming didn't change the world. We don't all live in a yellow submarine.Those who have heard me explain Society's 40-year Pendulum will recall my conviction that we're in the third year of a new generational cycle that will be remembered for its small-but-effective actions rather than its grand-but-impotent dreams. This new worldview is clearly communicated in the recent movie, Batman Begins, when Bruce Wayne's childhood friend says to him, “It's not who you are inside, but what you do that defines you.”Two weeks ago I made my famous Pendulum presentation to the good folks of Procter and Gamble at their world headquarters in Cincinnati. They loved it; said it explained a lot of weird phenomena they're seeing. Last week I presented it to the senior execs of Clear Channel Communications. They, too, were deeply moved. I'll be doing it one more time on October 15 at the Wizard Academy Reunion and Open House in Austin. Are you coming?Remember what I'm about to tell you: 2006 and 2007 will be years in which the world of advertising changes in tumultuous ways. You can ride these waves of change to the far horizon or you can attempt to tread water, stay where you are, and fight the undertow. I'll be talking about these coming changes on October 15 as well.Free the Beagle.Roy H. Williams