Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

Dean Rotbart says you are three different people.The first of the three is the person you see when you look in the mirror;  the person you believe yourself to be.The second is the person other people see when they look at you;  the person they believe you to be.The third is the real you.“Know something, sugar? Stories only happen to people who can tell them.” – Allan GurganusGurganus is right. The truth happens to everyone, but stories only happen to people who can tell them.Professor Sexton recently told me about a new definition of reality known as the antenarrative: Ante: prior to, Narrative: the story.It reminds me of that third person spoken of by Rotbart.The antenarrative is the story that no one can tell. Not even the people who were there. It is chaotic, without logic and disconnected. It is the way things actually happen. Narrative, on the other hand, is crafted in retrospect as a storyteller assembles selected puzzle pieces in 20/20 hindsight; the beginning, middle and end of the tale are now a foregone conclusion. If the storyteller chooses skillfully and arranges the antenarrative pieces artfully, his story will sparkle with fairy dust. If the storyteller chooses predictably and organizes the pieces chronologically, the story will smell like cat food.Antenarrative happens to everyone. But stories only happen to people who can tell them. Ernest Hemingway won the Pulitzer Prize for making the narrative of his finely-crafted fiction feel as unvarnished and rough-hewn as antenarrative. In speaking of The Old Man and the Sea, he said,“In stating as fully as I could how things really were, it was often very difficult and I wrote awkwardly and the awkwardness is what they called my style. All mistakes and awkwardnesses are easy to see, and they called it style.” – Papa Hemingway: A Personal Memoir, p. 198Another Pulitzer-winning book, Founding Brothers, is an attempt to look at selected moments of American history through that same spider-web lens. The American antenarrative of 1776 is that those colonists loyal to Britain reviled the conspirators who bound themselves together in a Declaration of Independence. Those conspirators were plagued by doubts, short of cash and argued continually as the success of their rebellion was in constant jeopardy. They never thought of themselves as “The Founding Fathers,” nor did they consider the survival of the American nation to be inevitable.But you and I live under the curse of post facto knowledge,“But of course the American Revolution had to succeed because, well, it just had to.”We never consider how this landmass called 21st century America might easily have remained an extension of England.Post facto knowledge is always troublesome, but especially so in ad writing.Facts are not necessarily believable just because they are true.Facts are not necessarily interesting just because they are true.Facts are not necessarily relevant just because they are true.This is why ad writers never let the truth stand in the way of a good story.Harley Davidson – American by Birth. Rebel by Choice.Volkswagen – Think Small.Walmart – Save Money. Live Better.Adidas – Impossible is Nothing.Levis – Quality never goes out of style.IBM – Solutions for a smart planet.Research the antenarrative of any of these brands and you’ll see exactly what I mean.Now let’s get back to Rotbart’s assertion. Is there a chance that1. what you see when you look at your company  is different than2. what other people see when they look at your company?  And could it be that3. your happiest future might result from a story not yet told?Come to Wizard Academy and we’ll help you find that story.Your future changes every time you come here.Let it out.Let it breathe.Let it live.Roy H. Williams

The next time someone tells you an advertising success story, especially if that success was online, ask to see the ad – the content – that triggered it.Here’s a Really Big Tip for you. You might want to write this down:“The media doesn’t make the ad work. The ad makes the media work.”I’m spending a lot of time these days fielding questions about online marketing. The most fervent of these petitioners are the ones who talk about the amazing response they’ve seen on FaceBook.“Does everything you post trigger a big response?”“No, but when it does work, Wow! It’s awesome.”“Show me something you posted that triggered a lot of interest.”Guess what I’ve learned from these encounters? FaceBook friends pass along only those things they find to be remarkable. And it’s always the message – the content – that is remarked upon. Jeff Greenspan of Buzzfeed says it clearly: “Nobody wants to be a shill for your brand, but they are happy to share information and content that helps them promote their own identity.”Do you sometimes visit a website and then see banner ads for that same company everywhere you go for the next several days? Congratulations, you’ve been “retargeted.”Retargeting is the shiny new object in advertising. (Google’s version of it is called Remarketing but it’s essentially the same thing.) Retargeting reminds me of a boy who stalks a girl after a bad first date, saying, “Give me another chance. Give me another chance. Give me another chance. Give me another chance…”A better solution, in my opinion, is to not blow the first date.Spend your time creating a remarkable offer. When your message is right, whatever media you choose to deliver that message is going to perform like nothing you’ve ever seen.BOOM. Success story.You can sell tickets to watch the fireworks.Bruce Feiler in the New York Times reported a few days ago that a recent study of two billion web visits found that 55 percent of readers spent fewer than 15 seconds on a page.Evidently, David Ogilvy’s decades-old observation remains correct:“Five times as many people read the headline as read the first line of body copy. So when you’ve written your headline, you’ve spent 83 percent of your ad budget.”Scan.Scan.Scan.Scan.Scan. Note. Move on.Scan.Scan.Scan. Note. Probe. Disconnect. Move on.Scan.Scan. Note. Probe. Double-check. Bingo. One-click. Here in 2 days.Ten websites attracted this shopper but only one of them made the sale.Q: What did the others do wrong?A: They focused too much on technology to reach the shopper and too little on what to say after they met.Advertising Doesn’t Fail. Ads Fail.Small business owners are drowning in sales pitches telling them they can “reach the perfect target” digitally. I don’t dispute that claim in the slightest. But each of the nine websites that didn’t make the sale “reached the perfect target,” didn’t they? What did it get them?That New York Times story about 2 billion page visits goes on to say,“In the last few years, there has been a revolution so profound that it’s sometimes hard to miss its significance. We are awash in numbers. Data is everywhere. Old-fashioned things like words are in retreat; numbers are on the rise. Unquantifiable arenas like history, literature, religion and the arts are receding from public life, replaced by technology, statistics, science and math. Even the most elemental form of communication, the story, is being pushed aside by the list.”Let me say this plainly: Wizard Academy will forever remain a guardian of the “unquantifiable arenas,” like history, literature, religion and the arts. We will keep up with technology, but we’ll never look to it for wisdom, emotion, persuasion or humanity.Marketing Miracles are far more often the result of finding a better story than of finding a better technology. Marshall McLuhan was wrong. The media is just the media. The message is the message.Roy H. Williams

Do you have code words and phrases whose meanings are known only to the people closest to you?I laughed a little when I realized the absurdity of some of the communication abbreviations that Pennie and I have developed over the years.Every couple has code phrases, I suppose, and there is doubtless a story behind every one. Are you willing to send us some of your code phrases and their definitions? I think it could be fun to compile a dictionary of them.Here are some of the phrases Pennie and I use most often:“Get official”To change from your work clothes into something ugly but comfortable, signifying that you are now officially home and in for the evening.“Foie gras” \?fwä-?grä\“I would spit this into a napkin if these other people weren’t with us. For the love of god don’t eat any of it.”“Go for the poise.”“Pull through this parking space into the one opposite, thereby leaving the car poised to be driven out forward when we leave.”“One more thing”“Objection. This is not what we originally agreed. You’re changing the deal we made.”“Preliminary weed-eat”An abandoned task you have no intention of completing.“Fox”Obviously artificial. (A mispronunciation of faux, recalling a moment 25 years ago when we overheard a condescending snob say that a piece of furniture had a “fox finish.” We’ve been chuckling about it ever since.)“Paper cigar”A brilliant improvisation crafted quickly to avoid disaster.“Rye grass”A widespread belief that isn’t true.“Don’t make me say Loren L. Lewis”“Of course I can get all this in one load. I am a magna cum laude graduate of the Loren L. Lewis School of Hauling.”Will you send us your code phrases and their definitions? Indiana Beagle will likely publish them in the rabbit hole and if we get enough, Wizard Academy Press will publish a little dictionary and we’ll have an extensive, secret language of our own.Are you in on this deal? Send your phrases with their definitions to Daniel@WizardAcademy.orgAroo.(I learned that one from Indy. It means “gotta run”)Roy H. Williams

You can do it.I don’t know how long it will take or what you will have to go through, but you can most definitely do it.1. See your objective clearly in your mind. You must see it before you can seize it. It takes courage to focus on your objective.Reach for the courage that dangles in front of you. Don’t fear that it will prove to be a carrot on a stick and you the unwitting mule.Courage is necessary to the seizing of your objective.Reach for your courage. It waits for you.Grasp your courage. See your objective. Identify your adventure.2. Name your objective. Saying it out loud moves it from private to public, from thought to action, from fantasy to reality.When you’ve said it aloud in front of people you care about, you are no longer a spectator. You are a player.3. Know that you will fail and rejoice when you do.Education is theoretical. Experience is practical. Battle scars are the marks of a warrior. Happiest are those moments when you rise from the ashes of bitter defeat to try again, smarter, wiser, unstoppable. Everyone is watching you. Smile at them. Show your teeth.A con man lies to someone who trusts him and walks away with money. A criminal threatens violence and walks away with money. These quick and hollow victories leave both men sadly unsatisfied. Lottery winners are famously miserable. Rich kids are depressingly bored.Yes, rejoice when you fail because nothing is more tragic than winning quickly.4. Cherish the caterpillar. Trust in the butterfly you cannot see. An angel is dressed as a beggar. Wisdom wears the hat of a fool. Power hides behind the eyelids of a quiet old woman.Every miracle wears a disguise.5. Expect evolution. Your objective will be altered by the passage of time. An infant bears little resemblance to the woman she will become, but she is the same girl, surely.Fantasy is frozen and changeless in the mind but a worthy objective is durable and alive. Your objective will grow and mature as you do. Don’t be surprised when it changes, because you are changing, too.You can do this.I don’t know how long it will take or what you will have to go through, but you can most definitely do this.Lift your eyes and see the courage that floats in the air before you.Reach for it.Hold tight.Roy H. Williams

Of all the things that drive men to sea, the most common disaster, I’ve come to learn, is women.I borrowed that sentence from Charles Johnson, a storyteller who begins his tale, Middle Passage, with that line. I chose not to enclose it in quotation marks because I didn’t want to alert you to the fact that misdirection was about to slap your cheek.Quotation marks do that, you know. They are animated bookends that wave like semiphore flags, shouting, “These words are special.”Misdirection is half the storyteller’s art.“Justice?— You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law.”1The other half is resolution: We are surprised to learn that women are a disaster. But after a moment’s reflection, we are not. We are surprised to learn the law is not just. But after a moment’s reflection, we are not.“Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.”2We are surprised to learn that a woman can turn into the wrong person. But after a moment’s reflection, we are not.Every magician depends on misdirection and resolution.The comedian is a magician of laughter. The greater his misdirection, the greater the orgasm of laughter at the punch line, that moment of resolution when it all comes together.The storyteller is a magician whose stage is the page. Words are the top hat from which he extracts his rabbits and the endless handkerchief he pulls from his sleeve. They are the handsaw he uses to cut the pretty girl in half and the wheels he uses to roll those halves together again.A great communicator says things plainly and brings clarity to the mind. This is difficult. But it is not magic.A storyteller turns the heart this way and that, showing it things it has never seen, things that have not yet happened, things that never will, using misdirection and resolution over and over, touching you in places you didn’t even know were there.Every business, every person, has a story to tell. You know this, of course.But now you face a difficult choice: Will you speak clearly and win the mind? Or will you speak magically and win the heart?Roy H. Williams

Retailers are asking, “Why do people buy from my competitors without even giving us a chance?” And I reply, “They gave you a chance. They just didn’t physically come to your store.”Customers carry instant access to all the knowledge of the world in their pockets. They no longer have to visit your store to compare prices and research their options.Why would they drive to a store to get expert guidance when better, faster, more objective guidance is instantly available online?You can argue, if you like, that the information you provide is far superior to the information available online. And you might even be right. But your customers are looking for information immediately. They’re looking for information right this second. They gave you a chance when they went online. Your website just didn’t volunteer what they wanted.If your answer to their query had been available online, Google or some other friend would likely have directed them to it.“Advertising is a tax you pay for not being remarkable.”There are three keys to being remarkable:1: Correctly anticipate the customer’s desire.2: Satisfy it clearly, with nothing held back.3: Package your offer magnetically.These are simple things, but as my friend Jeffrey Eisenberg says, “Simple isn’t always easy.”Particularly “not easy” is this challenge of magnetic packaging: to create an offer that draws attention, an offer that bears repeating, an offer that no one else has the courage to make.Magnetic Packaging begins with strategy. “What would the customer be delighted to hear?” Answer this question resoundingly and you have the beginnings of a successful direct response campaign.Want to know a secret? Next week’s class at Wizard Academy, “How to Write Direct Response Ads,” will be attended by three of the most successful direct response packagers in the world today: (1.) Brian’s website has more than unique visitors per day than most websites will see in 3 years. (2.) Ryan has hundreds of professional marketers paying him significant amounts of money each year just so they can hear what Ryan is currently thinking. (3.) Dan employs 180 people in a full-time direct response effort that brought in 85 million dollars last year. That business will easily exceed 100 million in 2014.Weirdly, all three of these giants want to hear what Jeff Sexton and I have learned about Magnetic Packaging.Dan has agreed to share the technique that allowed him to go from $70,000 in credit card debt to $85,000,000 in sales. Some of you have stayed in the room Dan built at Engelbrecht House. Yes, Dan has been part of the family for a long time, so he’s willing to share things with us that he shares with no one else. Brian and Ryan are also deeply involved with the Academy and even though they’re both attending as students, I’m betting their questions, comments, suggestions and observations will be insightful. Frankly, I’m very much looking forward to this class.All the rooms in Engelbrecht House and Spence Manor are full, of course, but we can definitely find a seat for you if you’re willing to rent a hotel room.This class is May 6-8. I’m definitely going to be there.Are you?Roy H. Williams

“Cream rises to the top” is what we tell talented people who are frightened. It’s a lie, of course, but it makes them feel like they have a chance.Confidence and courage are not the same thing.Confidence is trust in your ability.Courage is to have such security in your identity that you’re willing to risk open failure. “I’m okay with who I am and I know my intentions are honorable. Que sera, sera.”Confidence springs from ability.Courage springs from identity.And the energizing fluid of courage is audacity.Public speaking requires it.Singing demands it.And successful advertising depends on it.The technical term for the fear of speaking – and of being judged by what you say – is glossophobia, from the Greek gl?ssa, meaning tongue, and phobos, fear or dread.We must elevate you above this fear or you will never successfully advertise a business, promote an event, or advance your career.Stage fright isn’t just the fear of performing in front of large groups. It’s also the reluctance to make a presentation to a group of co-workers.Dr. David Carbonell says,“Stage fright is like being heckled mercilessly during your performance, and getting into an argument with the heckler, except that it’s your own mind doing the heckling. You get so involved in your internal struggle that you don’t get involved with the actual performance. Most people with performance anxiety get tricked into focusing on themselves, struggling against anxiety in a vain effort to get rid of it… One of the keys to mastering stage fright is to become truly involved in, and focused on, your material. Not on yourself.”Unless you’re a major celebrity, the audience didn’t really come to see you; they came to hear the material you brought them.It’s not about you at all. It’s about the material. Think about the material. Think about how the audience needs it. Think about the material. Think about how the audience needs it. Think about the material. Think about how the audience needs it.Don’t let anything get in the way of the gift you brought for your audience. It’s not about you at all.You’re only the mailman.I said earlier that courage is, “to have such security in your identity that you’re willing to risk open failure.”But sometimes you need Plan B, so here it is: Commit to delivering the mail. Commitment looks exactly like courage when you’re committed to something more important than your fear. Say to yourself, “It’s okay if the audience isn’t impressed with me, as long as they’re impressed with what I brought them.”Only a fool stands between a mother tiger and her cubs.Be the mother tiger.Roy H. Williams

I should begin with an apology, I suppose, because the secret of great advertising, the secret to great wealth, the secret of status and stature and your name on the lips of all the beautiful people is actually a wee bit disappointing.Yes, it’s a sadly disappointing big secret.The reason the big secret is such a letdown is that you already know it.Are you ready?The secret of great advertising is that you must find something to say that your customer would be happy to hear.You knew this, of course, but most advertisers don’t. If they did, our eyes and ears would not be so continually assaulted with such excruciating drivel.And this goes double for newscasters.Plato was obviously thinking about advertisers and newscasters in 372 BC when he said,“Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.”Ad strategy is more difficult to teach than ad copy.Strategy is determining what a customer would like to hear.Copy is deciding how best to say it.Impact in advertising is 80 percent strategy, 20 percent copy. This makes it nearly impossible for good copy to compensate for weak strategy.We create advertising failure when we pretend that creativity can overcome the fact that we really have nothing to say.Morris Hite said it sharply enough to pop a balloon:“If an ad campaign is built around a weak idea – or as is so often the case, no idea at all – I don’t give a damn how good the execution is, it’s going to fail. If you have a good selling idea, your secretary can write your ad for you.”Even more annoying than advertisers and newscasters who have nothing to say are those smug and confident little weasels who preach with passion that the secret of successful advertising is to find the media that reaches the RIGHT CUSTOMER. In effect, the weasels are selling you a treasure map. “The reason you haven’t found the treasure,” they say, “is because you’ve been digging in all the wrong places.”But the treasure isn’t buried at all. It’s in the pockets and purses of everyone you see. And if you offer these people something they’d rather have than their treasure, they’ll hand you their treasure with a smile and say “Thank you.” And then they’ll tell all their friends that they should give you some treasure, too.The media that delivers your message is the least important part of the communication equation. When your message is right, any media will work. When your message is wrong, no media will.During the decade when I lived in hotel rooms and spoke about advertising in 50 cities a year, my least favorite moment was when the airplane landed back home in Austin and the ground crew didn’t immediately throw open the door. Those minutes waiting for them to open the hatch and revive me to life were a dark and hateful hell for me.You did not need to know that. I included it only because I thought it would be weird to talk about “my second-least favorite moment” and leave you wondering about my first-least favorite.But now the mystery is solved, so we can continue.My second-least favorite moment was when an advertiser would follow me into the bathroom and then casually lean over to say, “Mr. Williams, I’m in the furniture business. How do you suggest I advertise? Is it TV? Is it Radio? Is it the Internet?”This happened to me a lot more often than you might think. How would you have answered?Roy H. Williams

When Ann Richards was Governor of Texas, she said, “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.” Governor Richards was slightly militant in her feminism, as was common 20 years ago when she made her piercingly witty statement.But the once-edgy voice of feminism has softened in recent years as Americans have increasingly recognized the abilities of women. America’s 110-year movement toward female empowerment is headed into its final phase:When you want to popularize an idea, romanticize it.The Twilight series of films was launched 5 and 1/2 years ago. Twilight revolves around Bella, a high-school girl who is average in every way, yet she’s accepted, respected and highly valued by immortals of astounding power and wealth. The Twilight films have grossed more than 3.3 billion dollars and it’s not because we believe in vampires.It’s because we believe in girls.In 2012 we were introduced to 16 year-old Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, another successful franchise about an average girl who is called upon to save humanity. Her inner strength, tenacity and fundamental goodness allow Katniss to survive everything that is thrown at her as she quietly wins the day. No fists flung skyward in triumph. No chin jutting forward in defiance. No happy end zone dance.Divergent is the newest of these Joan of Arc films in which an average young woman goes toe-to-toe against strong opponents and wins. The special ability of the Divergent protagonist, Tris Prior, is that she isn’t limited to seeing the world in just one way but is able to respond appropriately in ever-changing circumstances. In other words, Divergent celebrates an ability shared by every woman, everywhere.I don’t believe that Twilight, The Hunger Games and Divergent are changing our perception of women. Movies like these are just mirrors that show us how much our perceptions have already changed.The quietly heroic woman is especially evident in jewelry stores.As recently as ten years ago, approximately half of all men would choose the engagement ring alone. The other half would choose with their partner at their side. It was barely thinkable that a woman would shop for an engagement ring by herself and then bring her partner in to see it later. But this is a common practice today.Do you have any idea how this trend affects the language of engagement ring ads? Most women are gracious enough not to be angered by outdated AdSpeak such as, “Buy her the diamond she deserves,” but is such a statement going to attract a woman to your store?A more elegant observation would be to say, “When you love someone and they love you back, it just doesn’t get any better than that. And a diamond is the symbol of that love.” This statement treats both parties as equals and makes no assumptions regarding gender.But gender-neutral statements are difficult to craft in the English language since we have no gender-neutral pronouns to speak of someone that isn’t me or you. We are forced to say, “He walked across the road,” or “She walked across the road.” We cannot say, “It walked across the road.” Such are the miseries of an ad writer.The first artificial sweetener was dressed in pink and called Sweet and Low; adjectives that perfectly described the American woman of that day. In 1981, Sweet’n’Low was challenged by a new competitor. Equal quickly became the overwhelming choice of women. Men, not surprisingly, continued to favor Sweet… and Low. Then, in 2003, a third sweetener was introduced in gender-neutral yellow and everything has been Splenda ever since.Equal is no longer news and Sweet’n’Low is out of fashion.The point of today’s MondayMorningMemo is so vitally important that I’ll say it plainly in case you missed it: a woman may or may not be sweet, but she will never again be low. Women are making their own decisions and spending their own money. To assume that you need to reach “the man of the house” is slightly insane. Even if you’re selling engagement rings.Roy H. Williams

Nine Voices, Nine MoviesEach of us speaks and writes without thinking. This is why so much of what we say is predictable. Do you want to be more interesting? Choose an unusual perspective and verb tense. A movie begins in the mind of the listener every time you speak or write. At whom is your camera aimed?First Person perspective: “I, me, my, we, us, our.”The person speaking is the star of the movie.Second Person perspective: “you, your”The person listening is the star of the movie.Third Person perspective: “He, she, him, her, it, they, them”A person other than the speaker or the listener is the star of the movie.After you’ve chosen your star, you must decide upon the action. The verbs you use will be past tense, present tense or future tense. You should choose these verbs consciously, rather than unconsciously.Past tense verbs speak of history.Present tense verbs speak of action as it’s happening, play-by-play.Future tense verbs are predictive.Any story can be told with past tense, present tense or future tense verbs.It was the night before Christmas, and all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.It is the night before Christmas, and all through the house not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse.It will be the night before Christmas, and all through the house not a creature will stir, not even a mouse.Now let’s look at 9 different movies produced from a single script by using 3 different actors in each of 3 separate timelines.1. I placed my paws in warm water and shivered.(First person, past tense. Personal historical narrative.)2. You placed my paws in warm water and I shivered.(Second Person, past tense. An historical story about the listener.)3. She placed my paws in warm water and I shivered.(Third person, past tense. An historical story that describes the actions of a person that is neither the speaker nor the listener)4. I place my paws in warm water and shiver.(First person, present tense. I’m doing it right now.)5. You place my paws in warm water and I shiver.(Second person, present tense. The speaker describes what the listener is doing as it is happening.)6. She places my paws in warm water and I shiver.(Third person, present tense. The speaker is describing what someone else is doing as it is happening.)7. I will place my paws in warm water and shiver.(First person, future tense. Predictive of the speaker’s future action.)8. You will place my paws in warm water and I will shiver.(Second person, future tense. A story about what the listener will do in the future. This voice is predictive or prophetic.)9. She will place my paws in warm water and I will shiver.(Third person, future tense. A story about the actions of others that have not yet occurred. Again, predictive or prophetic.)The voice of any story is transformed when you change the actor and timeline.You have seen the 9 movies and heard the 9 voices.You have been forever changed. You are different now. You carry magic.You will speak with authority and people will listen.That is my benediction, crafted in the second person, traveling through your past (2 sentences) and your present (2 sentences) and seeing your future (1 sentence) in 5 easy lines.That last sentence, of course, was entirely present tense: confirming my present… to you.Aroo.Indiana Beaglesubstituting for the Wizard of Ads who is on a short sabbatical