Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

But Not Their Own Facts “If you’ve read about social media or been to any marketing conferences, you’ve probably heard tons of advice like love your customers, engage in the conversation, be yourself, and make friends. I call this unicorns-and-rainbows advice. Take a couple of time-honored adages, add in the unquestioning awe of an unaware audience, and pretty soon you’ve got an entire industry based on easy-to-agree-with but unsubstantiated ideas. But there’s a problem. Myths aren’t real and superstitions often do more harm than good.”-Dan Zarrella, Zarrella’s Hierarchy of ContagiousnessI agree with Dan Zarrella.Have you ever met a person who was absolutely certain that a flu vaccination gave them the flu? “I got a flu shot and immediately got the flu and I know lots of other people who have had the same experience.”“Post hoc, ergo propter hoc” is the Latin name for this highly seductive, misbegotten logic and it’s difficult to resist; “The second thing followed the first thing, therefore the first thing caused the second thing.” But it’s almost never true.It is impossible for a flu vaccine to cause the flu. Flu vaccines contain a killed virus, not a weakened one. The flu germs you receive are dead, dead, dead and cannot come back to life.I sense the narrowing of eyes, the clenching of jaws and the tightening of fists as thousands of readers hunker down to defend a deeply held personal belief: “I got the flu from a flu vaccine no matter what you say. You cannot debate my experience.”It takes a couple of weeks for a flu vaccine to develop sufficient antibodies to protect you from the flu. If you are exposed to the flu within those 2 weeks, bingo: you get the flu. And guess what? They give flu vaccines during flu season. That’s why it’s common for people to get the flu after receiving a flu shot. Those people were going to get the flu anyway, but they don’t know that. All they know is, “I got a flu shot and then I got the flu. The End.”Superstitions about advertising and social media are far more pervasive than misundertandings about flu vaccines. Honestly, I’d rather have the flu than argue with someone whose only “facts” are to say, “Well, I’ve always believed…” and “Me and all my friends…”And then there’s the BIG one: “Studies have shown…”I always want to throw my head back and scream to the sky, “Name the study! Who did the study? Where is the study? Show me the study!” but I usually don’t. I just smile and nod like a bobblehead doll and try to think of a way to escape the conversation.There’s no way to convince a person who makes up their own facts.In my 30 years as an ad writer, I’ve come to the conclusion that most people believe that everyone else thinks like they do. This has led to more disasters in advertising than you can possibly imagine.Think about your business, the thing you do for a living.Here is my promise: you can be certain that people outside your business DON’T think about it like you do.Consequently, you are uniquely unqualified to write ads for your business. You know too much about it. More importantly, you care too much about it. This causes you to assume that everyone else cares, or should care as much as you do.But they don’t. So do the right thing; hire an experienced professional to craft your ads for you.And go get a flu shot.Roy H. Williams

Eleven million copies of Tuesdays with Morrie have been sold. But one hundred years before Mitch Albom began spending the-day-after-Monday with Morrie, a previous Tuesday gathering had already left its mark upon the earth and walked triumphantly into the pages of history. You are cordially invited to the home ofStéphane Mallarmé89 Rue de Rome, ParisTuesdays, 9PM until Midnight Stéphane Mallarmé was an English teacher who wrote a little poetry on the side. Marcel Proust, the writer Grahame Greene would call “the greatest novelist of the 20th century,” was fond of Mallarmé but did not care for his poetry, saying, “How unfortunate that so gifted a man should become insane every time he takes up the pen.” Ouch. Other writers who spent Tuesdays with Stéphane were André Gide, Paul Valéry, Oscar Wilde, Paul Verlaine, Rainer Maria Rilke, and W.B. Yeats. Of these, only Verlaine was impressed with the poems of Stéphane Mallarmé. Of greater consequence, perhaps, than the writers who gathered on Tuesdays were the artists who came and filled Stéphane’s house with their drawings and paintings of him. These “Tuesday” works of art are now worth tens of millions of dollars though very few people realize Stéphane Mallarmé is the man portrayed. These works of art sell for millions because they were created by Manet, Degas, Gaugin, Whistler, Renoir and Munch. Auguste Rodin would pop in from time to time even though he was busy sculpting The Thinker. Claude Monet said very good things about the snacks. Yes, these were the days when legends walked the earth but they did not yet realize they were legends. In Paris they were known only as Les Mardistes, derived from the French word for Tuesday; “The Tuesday people of Stéphane Mallarmé.” Mallarmé believed poetry should evoke thoughts through suggestion rather than description and that it should approach the abstraction of music. Music! Claude Debussy, speaking of his masterpiece The Afternoon of a Faun, said “The music of this prelude is a very free illustration of Mallarmé’s beautiful poem… a succession of scenes through which pass the desires and dreams of the faun in the heat of the afternoon. Then, tired of pursuing the timorous flight of nymphs and naiads, he succumbs to intoxicating sleep…” Likewise, Ravel wrote Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé shortly after Mallarmé died, fantastic music dedicated to his memory. It’s easy to understand why musicians and impressionist painters liked Mallarmé. He said, “I am creating a language which must necessarily spring from a quite new conception of poetry, and I define it in these words: To paint, not the thing, but the effect which it produces.” Mallarmé liked images of snow, ice, swans, gems, mirrors, cold stars, and women’s fans. He saw the poet’s function as being, above all, “to give a purer meaning to the words of the tribe.” The music of Debussy and Ravel.The sculpture of Rodin.The words of Proust, Wilde and Yeats.The paintings of Monet, Degas, Gaugin and Renoir. The world may have forgotten Stéphane Mallarmé but we will never forget his tribe. Les Mardistes. It is enough. Roy H. Williams

Style Guides and Audio Signatures: Part Two THE OUTER YOU: The best ad campaigns have a style guide. Implicit or explicit, the style guide is always there.A visual style guide determines the look and feel of visual ads, signage and décor. Audio Signatures (distinctive enunciations, sound effects, special effects, unusual voices, rhythms, delivery styles, etc.) are the primary elements in a style guide for electronic media.If a campaign lacks a style guide, it’s a group of disconnected ads. The tighter your style guide, the tighter the connection between your ads and the more memorable your ad campaign.THE INNER YOU: A Character Bible is the style guide that determines the personality of each actor on the stage, telling the playwright how each character thinks, acts and sees the world. The Character Bible is what makes character arcs believable in works of fiction. (A character arc is the emotional transformation of a fictional character as he or she reacts to events in the story, thereby becoming a different person than the one he or she was when the story began.)Keep that thought in mind: The personality of a fictional entity is created through a style guide.INSIDE YOUR BRAND: Every brand is a fictional entity. The strongest brands are those with the most attractive personalities.What is the personality of your brand? What does it look like? What does it sound like? How does your brand think, act, and see the world? (If you’ve spent any time with David Freeman at Wizard Academy, you know exactly what I’m talking about.)INSIDE YOUR COMPANY: A company is another type of fictional entity.The personality of your company is spread across its employees, representatives who are supposed to think, act, and see the world according to the principles your company was built upon. Your employees are your actors and they hunger for a style guide.Your Mission Statement is not your style guide. Mission Statements are amorphous dollops of wishful thinking, high hopes committed to paper. Forgive me, but the average Mission Statement is packed with more clichés than the greeting card aisle in a drugstore. Every time I read one I’m reminded of those young women in beauty pageants who look to the judges with big Bambi eyes and say, “My dream is for world peace.”It takes more than a Mission Statement to bring about world peace and it will take more than a Mission Statement to unify your employees.HOW TO USE THIS INFORMATION:1. Identify the Unifying Principles of your company.2. Write them down.3. Make them real through your words and actions.Unifying Principles become the Character Bible for real-world employees.Unifying Principles are not core values. They provide more guidance than core values.Unifying Principles are not rules. They provide more freedom than rules.Unifying Principles are specific statements that reflect a belief system.Unifying Principles bring people into unity and form the basis for coordinated action.When Jesus was challenged to name “the highest” of the 10 Commandments, he did not answer with a commandment but with two Unifying Principles: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest [Unifying Principle.] And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two [Unifying Principles.]”Honesty is a core value.“Do not steal” is a rule.“Love your neighbor as yourself” is a Unifying Principle. Generosity is a core value.“Allow second helpings” is a rule.“Provide enough that an abundance remains when everyone has had all they want” is a Unifying Principle.Fairness is a core value.The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment is a rule.“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” is a Unifying Principle. Rules are for people whose minds are too small to grasp the principle behind the rules. Involve your employees in your Unifying Principles and you’ll find that rules are no longer required.Principles, not rules, determine how we think, act, and see the world. When employees embrace the principles upon which your company is built, you can trust them to make the right decisions.Can you articulate your Unifying Principles? Give it some thought.Need some help? Come to Austin.Roy H. Williams 

Ad Campaign: a series of ads bound together by a set of distinctive identifiers.Can you name the identifiers that mark your campaign?Okay, there’s the font you use for your company name and the color scheme you use on your business cards, letterhead and signage. But the world overflows with fonts and colors. What other distinctive identifiers cause your readers, listeners and viewers to immediately recognize your ads as yours?Think of an ad campaign other than your own that you admire. What are its distinctive identifiers?Every successful campaign has a style guide that gives its ads their “connectedness.” The longer you use a memorable style guide, the more recognizable your brand becomes.Customers prefer the known to the unknown, the familiar to the unfamiliar.  The Morton Salt girl has changed dramatically over the years, but always within a clearly defined style guide that makes her seem forever the same; right foot forward, left foot back, umbrella cradled in the crook of the right elbow, salt pouring behind her as she carries it in the crook of her left elbow, and the rain falling at an angle, right to left, as though pushing the girl forward rather than opposing her. And the color scheme is strictly dichromatic: yellow and navy blue.Salty Sally has had six different faces and has changed her clothes and shoes and hairstyle in virtually every incarnation but she remains one of the most recognized brand icons in the world due to Morton’s commitment to work within the boundaries of a highly specific style guide.A good style guide is built upon the words “always” and “never.” What is always in your ads? What is never in them? What are the boundaries of your style guide?A distinct brand personality is the result of a memorable style guide. A tight style guide makes your company feel reliable in the mind of your customer.It’s easy to be creative when you’re free to do anything you want. The test of real creative genius is whether you can be unpredictable and consistent simultaneously. Can you create something new, surprising and different within a recognizable framework carved in stone?If you do what people expect you to do, you bore them. If you say what they expect you to say, they turn their attention elsewhere.Predictability is death in advertising. But consistency is the lifeblood of brand building.Predictability is the result of bad writing.Consistency is the result of a style guide.Good writing within a memorable style guide is the mark of a master.In works of fiction, the style guide is known as the Character Bible. It defines how each character thinks, acts, and sees the world. If a fictional character says or does something that doesn’t ring true, it’s because the writer stepped beyond the boundaries of the Character Bible.Bill Watterson created the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes within a devilishly narrow style guide and an unbelievably tight Character Bible. Hobbes is a lanky tiger with a dry wit when only Calvin is in the frame of the cartoon with him but when anyone else is present, Hobbes is a small, stuffed tiger with button eyes. Watterson steadfastly refuses to license Calvin and Hobbes television shows, plush toys, action figures or other products. This unforgettable pair will forever be limited to the printed page.Watterson is giving up tens of millions of dollars and he knows it. I admire him.Animals are much better equipped than you and me to judge color differences, depth perception, pattern disruptions and smells. The gift that allows us humans to rule the world is our ability to attach complex meanings to sounds. Some of these sounds are called words but other sounds have specific meanings as well.You no longer see when you look away, but you hear and retain information even when you’re no longer listening. This is why the average person can sing along with more than 2,000 songs, none of which they ever intended to learn. Does your style guide include a unique audio signature that is used in all your electronic advertising? Do you employ specific word flags, rhythms, sound effects or vocal styles that cause listeners to know immediately that you’ve walked into their world?Mick Jagger, Billy Joel and Frank Sinatra might sing exactly the same word in precisely the same key, but you’d still know which one was who, right? You’d know instantly, without even having to think about it.Never use the house announcer in your electronic ads. Own a voice that is distinctive and memorable. Don’t share it with anyone else in your marketplace. That voice will be an imporant element in your style guide.Guess whose voice I believe in most?Yours.Roy H. Williams

You’re reading this and I’m honored, because you delete far more emails than you open.Which others do you open?I know, of course, that you read emails from your closest friends and family. But are there any newsletters, blog posts or subscriptions that you open more often than not? Can you pick a single favorite you’d be willing to share?I was crafting an altogether different Monday Morning Memo when “ding” my computer let me know an email had arrived. I glanced at the time and said, “That will be Exley.”And it was.I’ve known Richard Exley for 30 years. We met when he was a struggling preacher holding church in a school gymnasium and I was a bright-eyed advertising salesman trying to make a living on straight commission. I never attended his church but we often had lunch together.  Although Richard and I have spoken only about 5 times in the past 25 years, we continue to be important to one another. You have friends like that, don’t you?Take comfort. Frequency of communication does not equal depth of relationship.Richard began sending out a daily One-Minute Devotional about a year ago.  Like any good writer, Richard nudges my mind into green fields where it might not otherwise have wandered.“I don’t like to think of myself as a materialistic person but driving away from the Highway 12 East storage complex I could hardly come to any other conclusion. For nine years I paid almost $40 a month to store things I haven’t used in nearly a decade. Add it up – nine years at $444 a year comes to $3,996.”Richard’s thoughts interest me because he notices all kinds of things that most people don’t. This was his greeting last Christmas:A“There is not a shred of evidence to indicate that the shepherds were in any way special; nothing to suggest that there was anything in their spirit, or nature, or lifestyle that predisposed them to receive the angelic announcement of the savior’s birth. Which means that God doesn’t just come to religious people in church but to undeserving people the world over, be it lepers or lunatics, shepherds or Samaritans, or even women taken in adultery.”Sometimes Richard offers grandfatherly advice.“If you have the courage to follow your heart’s desire you will usually gravitate to your area of giftedness. You may not end up in the most prestigious position, or land the best-paying job, but you will have a more fulfilling life.”I give Richard Exley 60 seconds each day and I consider it a good investment.“Don’t mistake recklessness for boldness. Boldness is a calculated risk based on the best possible information.”“Forgiving those who have wronged us is often a process rather than a single event.”I asked my friend Richard to record these quotes in his own voice because I wanted to ask your opinion: Is it just me, or does he sound a little bit like Sean Connery? Every time I hear Richard I expect him to say, “Bond. James Bond.” Now it’s your turn. I want you to tell the rest of us about a daily or weekly email you always open. But just one. Give us a link to it. Tell us what you get from it that causes you to always open it. I’ve told Indiana Beagle to post all submissions in next week’s rabbit hole. But this is the rule: you must select just ONE subscription to share with us. If you send more than one, you will be disqualified.I’m imposing this strange rule for just one reason: you hear hundreds of e-voices every day. I want you to know which one you value most. When you are forced to choose just one, you will learn something about yourself.Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” I am tempted to agree.Come. It is examination day. Send your favorite blog or e-subscription to Jackie@WizardAcademy.orgHow many people will do this?We shall see.Roy H. Williams

What Do You See In Your Mind?The goal of the batter is to hit the baseball. This is why every kid who holds a bat is told, “Don’t take your eye off the ball.”Later, when endurance is needed, we say, “Keep your eye on the prize.”Can you name the ball you’re trying to hit? Can you name the prize?As a consultant to business owners for more than 30 years, I can tell you without equivocation the question that is the hardest for the average businessperson to answer. This is the question: Drum roll, please. (rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble) “What are you trying to make happen?”With death hanging in the balance, mountain climbers turn my question into the imperative command: “Don’t Look Where You Don’t Want to Go.”The first step in any journey is to see your destination.Your mind is an amazing thing, crammed with invisible and unknown mechanisms* that move you unconsciously toward whatever future you believe to be real.What future do you believe to be real? Do you have the audacity to believe in a happy ending? Do you have the courage to move toward that ending with every action you take? Persons who are frightened, angry or bitter will see this and call you “naïve.”Sadly, this will be most people.Your choices and your actions are merely reflections of what you see in your mind. What do you see?The first step toward accomplishing a thing is to project it onto the visuospatial sketchpad of working memory. This is the scientific phrase for “see it in your mind’s eye.” You can do only what you have first imagined.What do you imagine?Boredom is a kind of death. Human beings need strong emotion. This is why we would rather be angry than bored. Anger is a type of excitement.Fear is another type of excitement. The success of horror movies is proof of this. Our thoughts are informed and our moods are altered by the voices we let into our minds. What voices do you invite in? In the dark, oppressive days of colonial America Thomas Jefferson wrote sparkling words about the bright future he saw in his mind, “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal…” I believe Jefferson’s ability to see this bright future was rooted in something else he wrote, “I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.”My greatest luxury in life is that I have a terrifically strong wife. Pennie pays attention to all that’s happening in the world and shares with me only those things she believes I’d like to know. The Princess of my world is one of those rare people who feels no fear and is slow to anger. For these and other reasons, Pennie can gather news about current events and not be affected by it. I do not have her gift. Most people, I believe, do not. Had the Princess and I not been married these 35 years, I’d have had to choose between being woefully uninformed or being made miserable by the demons who smile from behind teleprompters and microphones.Call me childish and broken if you want, but I avoid woeful country music for the same reason I avoid self-important newscasters: my world overflows with possibilities that seem not to exist in theirs. Sad country singers and somber newscasters try to drag me into their world but I hang tightly to the one I prefer.In my world, each of us is swimming in opportunity and everything is possible. I see opportunity all around you. You can see it too, can’t you?My highest wish is that you should have a crystal clear vision of what you are trying to make happen.1. See it clearly in your mind. This is the first step toward a happy ending.2. Commit. Don’t waffle. Waffling diminishes focus, negates serendipity and triggers boredom.3. Talk about it. Words are rockets that launch thoughts into reality.4. Take action. The size of the action is less important than its relentless regularity. Miracles are made of Exponential Little Bits.5. Don’t look where you don’t want to go.Roy H. Williams   

This will be the smartest thing I’ve done in years or it will be the stupidest. And I’m going to do it openly so the whole world can watch to see what happens as these next few months unfold.The promotion of Wizard Academy is about to be turned over to someone else.Mark Fox said, “Roy, instead of hiring someone to do what you do badly, why not hire someone to do what you do best?”“Huh?” Mark is on the board of directors of Wizard Academy so I had to keep listening.“You say the Academy needs a vice-chancellor to stay connected with the students because you do such a bad job of that. But the truth is that the faculty and staff are making sure that everyone’s needs are met. What we need is a marketing apprentice, someone who can spend all day, every day, doing the ten thousand things that need to be done to promote the academy and its classes.”Suddenly I remembered why Mark is on the board. I am on the inside, looking out, and had been seeing the problem backwards. Mark is on the outside, looking in, and saw the problem clearly. Have You Chosen advertising, marketing and public relations to be your life’s work? Are you overflowing with ideas, energy and time? Are you teachable? Are you willing to relocate to Austin, Texas? Can you live on less than $50,000 a year? The marketing apprentice at Wizard Academy will attend classes for free and be advised by some of the greatest media minds in America: Mark Huffman of Procter and Gamble, Dean Rotbart of Wall Street Journal fame, Greg Farrell of Bloomberg News and David McInnis, the revolutionary founder of PR Web. And these are just 4 of several hundred giants who will be happy to take your phone call.The online marketing books of Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg have ridden the bestseller lists of The New York Times, BusinessWeek, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal. Bryan and Jeffrey will help you in any way they can. The scope of Wizard Academy’s relational resources is so vast that you’ll need to lie down and put a cold rag on your head when the full impact of it lands on your mind.Your office will be in the tower at Wizard Academy, overlooking Austin from a 900-foot plateau at the edge of town. You’ll be horribly overworked and underpaid, but you’ll have a fabulous office and lots of friends.This job does have a downside: The chancellor of Wizard Academy will be your boss and the current chancellor is overcommitted, reclusive, moody and impatient. He will expect you to use short sentences and make your points very quickly. He will not help you process your thoughts. You’ll have to use other staff members for that. And you WILL have to live in Austin so that you can meet and interact with your principal resource: the alumni and friends of Wizard Academy. Telecommuting is not an option.Are you up for it? If so, email us 2 pages. Tell us about yourself on the first page. We want to know who, what, where and why. The second page will be a 1-sheet marketing plan detailing exactly what you would do to promote Wizard Academy if your only tools were a computer with online access, a recording studio, a television studio, access to hundreds of profoundly important people and the names and email addresses of a few thousand Wizard Academy alumni. If you have an idea that requires anyone’s energy but your own, that idea is immediately disqualified. And one last thing: you have no marketing budget whatsoever. Are you still up for it? Email your 2 pages to Corrine@WizardAcademy.orgGood Luck,Roy H. Williams

These are the 5 questions you must answer before you can know how soon your ads will start working:Q. 1: What percentage of the noise made in your category – in all the different media combined – is being made by you? This is your Share of Voice.Q. 2: What percentage of the population will actively be in the market for your product or service this week? This is your Product Purchase Cycle.Food has a very short Product Purchase Cycle. The shorter the Product Purchase Cycle, the quicker your ad campaign will reach maximum ROI.Cars have a medium-length Product Purchase Cycle. The average American trades cars every 180 weeks (42 months.) Consequently, 0.55 percent of us will buy or lease a car this week. (Does this mean that anyone who advertises cars is wasting 99.45 percent of his investment?)That’s right; 180 weeks (42 months) is a medium-length product purchase cycle. What do you suppose is the Product Purchase Cycle for HVAC system replacement? Engagement rings? Furniture? Products with longer purchase cycles require more time for their ad campaigns to ramp up to their full potential.  These campaigns usually show poor results during the first 90 to 150 days then begin to deliver increasingly good results until the growth curve begins to flatten out about halfway through the Purchase Cycle. If the purchase cycle is 10 years, the campaign will start slow, then generate increasingly good results until it levels off in about 5 years. You will then have to continue advertising just to maintain the market share you’ve achieved. If relevant new information is not injected into the campaign at this time, the advertiser will become frustrated and disgruntled and begin to say things like, “Our ads aren’t as good as they used to be,” or “I don’t think we’re reaching the right people.”Q. 3: How many people will ever be in the market for this product or service?  What percentage of the public will ever consider this product to be relevant? A high percentage of the public will someday need a refrigerator, furniture, HVAC system replacement and an engagement ring. The best strategy for advertisers such as these is for them to use relevance and repetition to become the provider the customer thinks of first and feels the best about.But what about fine formal china, such as Royal Doulton at $100 per place setting and the solid silver tableware that accompanies it? What percentage of today’s public will ever be in the market for these?Q. 4:  What degree of credible urgency does your ad contain? Is there any reason for the customer to take action now? You can shorten a Product Purchase Cycle by making a strong offer that is time-limited or quantity-limited. If you create a once-in-a-lifetime offer for a product with a long purchase cycle, you’ll likely move a number of people into the market who would otherwise have purchased at a later date. If your offer is powerful and credible, you’ll see great success. But don’t take a good thing too far; the more often you do this, the less well it will work. Sadly, the success of this “urgency” technique makes it highly addictive. Almost without exception, the advertiser who makes a once-in-a-lifetime offer will choose to make a similar, once-in-a-lifetime offer within a year. Soon his “sale” ads lose all credibility and his customers will begin to ask, “When does this go on sale?” God help us. We pushed a good thing too far and we’ve trained the customer NOT to buy unless we’re promoting a massive discount.Marketing is tricky. It almost makes you want to hit yourself in the head with a hammer sometimes, doesn’t it? Q. 5: What is your Competitive Environment? In other words, how well are your competitors known? How good are they at what you do? Your ads are not the only ads your customer will see and hear.  Is a competitor making a more powerful offer than you?  Share of Voice can be purchased. Share of Mind must be earned. Share of Voice is the percentage of noise in the marketplace that is yours. Share of Mind is the mental real estate you have purchased in consciousness of your customer.Share of Voice times Relevance equals Share of Mind. Frequent repetition of your ads will earn you a higher Share of Voice. But a big Share of Voice times zero Relevance equals zero Share of Mind and zero results.Most advertisers talk in their ads about what the customer should care about, what they ought to care about, instead of what they actually care about. If you remember nothing else from today’s memo, remember these two things and you’ll do well: 1. Clarity is more important than creativity. 2. Relevance is more important than repetition.   NOTE: I did NOT say that creativity and repetition don’t count. Sell on.Roy H. Williams

If History, Indeed, Repeats Itself “There is a holy mistaken zeal in politics as well as in religion.”– The Letters of Junius, 1769 – 1771“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to bed in the streets, and to steal bread.”– Anatole France, 1844 – 1924 “Men who believe themselves to be good, who do not search their own souls, often commit the worst atrocities. A man who sees himself as evil will restrain himself. It is only when we do evil in the belief that we do good that we pursue it wholeheartedly.”– David Farland, 2001We are in danger of becoming self-righteous, sanctimonious and insufferably judgmental. You don’t want to see this happen. Neither do I.My hope is that you and I – with open eyes and soft words – might be able to mitigate this coming trend. I recently completed a study of societal trends that have repeated themselves for the past 3,000 years. Pendulum, the book that resulted from this study, will be released on September 4, 2012.Let me start at the beginning:We see the world through the lens of an entirely different set of values every 40 years. We become a different people.We are pulled 20 years up from the tipping point to the zenith of a “We” (1923 to 1943.)We swing 20 years down to the next tipping point (1963.) Tipping points are interesting times.We are pulled 20 years up to the zenith of a “Me” (1963 to 1983.)We swing 20 years down to the next tipping point (2003.)Eighty years is a complete cycle but there are only 40 years between the extremes. (The 1943 zenith of “We” to 1983 zenith of “Me.”)We’re nearly halfway up to the next zenith of “We” (2023.) 2011 is 1931 all over again. But instead of being gaga over a thing called “radio” we’re gaga over this thing called “online.”A new set of values every 40 years…On one side are the values of “We,” the team, the tribe, the group working together, staying connected.On the other side are the values of “Me,” the individual, unique and special and possessing unlimited potential.“Me”1. …demands freedom of expression. 2. …applauds personal liberty.3. …believes one man is wiser than a million men, “A camel is a racehorse designed by a committee.”4. …wants to achieve a better life.5. …is about big dreams.6. …desires to be Number One. “I came, I saw, I conquered.”7. …admires individual confidence and is attracted to decisive persons.8. …leadership is, “Look at me. Admire me. Emulate me if you can.”9. …strengthens a society’s sense of identity as it elevates attractive heroes. “We”1. …demands conformity for the common good.2. …applauds personal responsibility.3. …believes a million men are wiser than one man, “Two heads are better than one.”4. …wants to create a better world.5. …is about small actions.6. …desires to be a productive member of the team. “I came, I saw, I concurred.”7. …admires individual humility and is attracted to thoughtful persons.8. …leadership is, “This is the problem as I see it. Please consider the things I am telling you and perhaps we can solve this problem together.”9. …strengthens a society’s sense of purpose as it considers all its problems. “Me” and “We” are equal-but-opposite attractions that pull our perspective one way, then the other. Western society swings like a pendulum from one set of values to the other every 40 years with the regularity of an old and reliable grandfather clock. “Me” and “We” values are equally good, but we always take a good thing too far. If history is to be our guide, the next 20 years will be when we move from our agreement of mutual brokenness, “I’m Not Okay – You’re Not Okay,” to embrace a self-righteous indignation, “I’m Okay – You’re Not Okay.” Sanctimonious vigilante-ism will become popular as indignant leaders demonize their enemies and rally their followers by appealing to their inborn sense of rightness and social obligation, “Let’s clean this place up and to hell with compromise. They are entirely wrong and we are entirely right. They are stupid. We are wise. They are evil. We are good.”The last time we went through this, America formed a committee in Congress called the House Un-American Activities Committee (1938) which later watched with glee while Senator Joseph McCarthy destroyed countless careers by recklessly branding his enemies as “Communists” and creating the infamous blacklists.This sounds a bit far-fetched, doesn’t it? I know it does. I’m writing because I want you to be able to look back and recall how absurd this all sounded when I first told you what was on the horizon if history can be trusted.A self-righteous nut with a gun killed dozens of people in Norway and believed he was doing the right thing.That’s the problem with self-righteous nuts; they always believe they’re doing the right thing.Roy H. Williams

Relevance has always been an important part of effective communication but never so much as today. The appalling dropout rate in High Schools and the sharp decline in church attendance are just two of the indicators of an accelerated demand by people for relevance. “Why should I? Will it make me happier? Is it really going to make a difference or is it just a waste of my time?” These are the unspoken questions asked all day, every day, by every customer. I believe these fierce, unspoken questions are society’s response to the jet-engine whine of information overload. Are you answering these unspoken questions in your ads, or are you just adding to the overload? “I am the customer. How will you change my condition? Convince me that interacting with you would be worth my time.” Keep in mind, advertiser, that your ad will be just one of 5,000 sneaky little messages that will try to break into the customer’s consciousness today. Most of these 5,000 messages will be evaluated and dismissed in a fraction of a second. Will yours be one of these? Look around. The air is thick with messages. They bark like little dogs and wave at us like shadows from the corners of our eyes.Let’s talk for a moment about the two basic styles of selling:A dynamic “Me” personality believes in “overcoming objections.” Selling is combat. Push.A responsive “We” personality believes in “positive attraction.” Selling is seduction. Pull.Most people talk about Push and Pull as different forms of media. “The Internet,” they say, “is a Pull media. Everything else is Push.”But don’t you believe that for a second. “Push” and “Pull” don’t describe the media; they describe the relationship between advertiser and customer. Internet advertisers who use a Push message strategy quickly conclude they’re somehow “reaching the wrong people” and then go off to find a qualified opt-in list because, “By golly, if I can just reach the right people I know I can make me some money!” It’s hard to convince an overbearing Push jackass that he needs to change his approach.Let me say this plainly: Marshall McLuhan was wrong. The media is NOT the message. The message is the message.What, I ask you, will be your message? The media is just the messenger who will deliver it. Do you actually believe it is the messenger who determines the customer’s response to your message?Push or Pull can be used online.Push or Pull can be used in traditional media.Advertisers using a Pull strategy in traditional media are seeing this new style of advertising work extremely well.Pull is built on relevance, positive attraction, connection, relationship and credibility. But you can’t create an ad that relates to your customer and seems credible to them until you first understand the wants, needs, hungers, fears and anxieties of your customer.It’s not about you. It’s about them. How will your product or service change their condition? Tell them.If I could teach you in 6 minutes how to create a Pull message, I’d happily do that for you in next week’s Monday Morning Memo. But I can’t teach it in 6 minutes.I can, and I will, teach it in 2 long days.Are you coming? If so, be sure to bring lots of examples of the recent ads you’ve been using. This class won’t be about me and my message.It will be about you and yours.Roy H. Williams