"Words are the most powerful drug used by mankind." Rudyard Kipling

"Let everyone sweep in front of his own door and the whole world will be clean." Goethe

"Any jackass can kick down a barn but it takes a good carpenter to build one." Sam Rayburn

Today's image: New Day 1600 by myuserid. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

Marketing ace Tom Asacker has written an article that deserves your attention. Ball of Brand Confusion [via PDF here], Tom's latest offering, suggests "Marketers are obsessed with words." Tom then goes on to counsel us..."You are not in the words business; you're in the business of adding value to customers' lives."

He's right.

The focus of attention and resources should first be on the product or service experience. There is only one moment of truth, that moment of actual first usage when everything you are is determined, defined by the product or service experience.

Having the right concept while critical to success quickly becomes subordinate to execution.

But what about words? My sense is words, in the context of marketing and advertising, do play an important role in positioning, creating product or service expectations. They may also serve to affirm experience, or not. "Tell the story, take out the good lines and see if it still works" advised Hemingway.

A good example of promotion over product is the movie trailer. Too often the trailer creates expectations the movie simply fails to pay off. The trailer, showing off the movie's best moments, is sometimes better than the movie itself. We are also seeing cutting room floor footage being used in trailers (i.e., scenes not even in the final cut).

Here's the thinking of two brilliant ad men...

"Writing good advertisements is very difficult indeed. But writing good anything is very difficult. I think it was Aldous Huxley who said it is easier to write a passable sonnet than a passable advertisement. I couldn't write a sonnet to save my life, so that's not the case with me." David Ogilvy

"We approach now, and gingerly, the most dangerous word of all in advertising - originality. Here, without doubt, is the Golden Fleece for which all of Madison Avenue is seeking. Here, misty, distant, and infinitely desirable, is the copywriter's Holy Grail. Unfortunately, it has ruined more advertisers than it has ever made, for it has never been defined - and the searchers thus are never sure just what it is they're seeking...This preoccupation with 'originality,' at times, leads writers to absurd extremes. Suddenly, one of the very few truly original advertisements will appear. It may be a great success. Immediately, these writers begin to imitate it - unaware that they are copying merely the form, rather than the concealed gears, pulleys, and mechanisms that the master copywriter has concealed beneath the surface." Rosser Reeves

From the same classic writing [Reality in Advertising], Reeves reminds us of role when he quotes the legendary copy writer Claude Hopkins "...writers abandon their parts. They forget they are salesmen and try to be performers. Instead of sales, they seek applause."

One more thought from the great genius of Mr Reeves "...unless the product has a truly unique advantage, as opposed to a pre-empted claim, it is vulnerable to the manufacturer who is willing to spend money on product development and put a dramatically superior product into the field."

For media folks allow me to again sum it up in a sentence: All that's important is what comes out of the speakers and what's on the screen(s), everything else is a footnote.

Bonus: Jessica Person

Congrats & cheers: Casey the K, Lee Harris and all involved in the WLHA Staff Reunion. A wonderful time was had by all this past weekend. Check out the WLHA Tribute Site here.

Have an amazing week. Make something happen!

"To create one's own world in any of the arts takes courage." Georgia O'Keeffe

"...one of the hallmarks of a creative person is the ability to tolerate ambiguity, dissonance, inconsistency, things out of place. But one of the rules of a well-run corporation is that surprise be minimized. Yet if this rule were applied to the creative process, nothing worth reading would get written, nothing worth seeing would get painted, nothing worth living with and using would ever get designed." Ralph Caplan

"The ways of creativity are infinite: the ways of formal learning are numbered. Restless, curious, playful, contriving, the innovative mind feeds on challenge and makes its home in the province of mystery." Robert Grudin

Today's image: Street guardian by Rui Palha. Brilliant. Thanks for sharing!


Something discovered while doing research for an upcoming talk.

David Ogilvy, a memo to the Board, October 1978...

A Teaching Hospital

I have a new metaphor.

Great hospitals do two things: They look after patients, and they teach young doctors.

Ogilvy & Mather does two things: We look after clients, and we teach young advertising people.

Ogilvy & Mather is the teaching hospital of the advertising world. And, as such, to be respected above all other agencies.

I prefer this to Stanley Resor's old saying that J. Walter Thompson was a 'university of advertising.'

Beautiful. Ogilvy was indeed a genius.

Wanted: Teaching hospitals of the 21st century advertising world.

My sense is that project would require another Ogilvy. Leadership!

Bonus: Lee Arnold

"Perspective is worth ten IQ points"

That's wise counsel from Gary Hamel. As we begin another first quarter and another round of earnings calls what we need is some fresh perspective. The #1 challenge facing broadcasters continues to be broadcasters. Captives to history. As a practical matter, incumbency is worthless. Stop thinking about broadcast in the context of broadcast. Start thinking about broadcast in the context of everything else. Focus on the denominator. The most telling stat of all is share. Set aside CAGR, broadcast share is in decline - Danger, Will Robinson. First big important step - find the hunger. Forget about getting better, get pathologically competitive, obsessed about getting different. (My thanks to Thomas P.M. Barnett for the construct. Tom has said the difference between himself and the folks that work at the Pentagon is they think about war in the context of war and he thinks about war in the context of everything else)

Eagle flies in Iowa: Campaign Media Analysis Group estimates Iowa TV stations picked up $45 mil in the run up to yesterday's caucuses.

Congrats & cheers: For the first time, Disney Channel beat all the ad-supported cable networks in prime during 2007, delivering more average viewers than any other #1 network in cable TV history. USA posted second.

Blogging music: Daytrotter. Rock Sellout. My thanks to the Hey Nielsen crew for the tips.

Too soon to tell: Story about GSD&M creative for the HD Radio Alliance breaks in the trade. Gregory Solman writes it up in Ad Week, GSD&M Preps $200 Mil. + HD Radio Push. Meanwhile, Media Monitors proclaims the HD Radio Alliance 2007's #1 radio advertiser (national spot). 1,451,036 spots detected. My thought is those 1.45 mil units were only a part of the 2007 messaging efforts. Promos, IDs, et al by local stations were not insignificant and should be properly credited in any realistic accounting of investments made in the HD Radio initiative. As mentioned here previously 2008 is the third year of this initiative. Alliance members have pledged $230 mil in inventory. This represents an incredible opportunity and one that should not be wasted. The largest single multi-year investment made by and for radio in the history of radio should produce results. The HD Radio campaign should serve as nothing less than a practical demonstration of the power of radio advertising. The evidence must be empirical. Q.E.D.

"All art is propaganda; on the other hand, not all propaganda is art." George Orwell

"If a lion could speak, we would not understand him." Ludwig Wittgenstein

"Form is not the goal but the result." Mies van der Rohe

Today's photo: Snow on Dead Neighborhoods by Thomas Hawk. Great shot. Thank you very much!

B L I N D

"Every morning (during the 1950s) advertising doyen David Ogilvy used to pass a beggar in Central Park who had a sign round his neck which said BLIND.

One morning Ogilvy stopped, took it off the man's neck, and wrote: IT IS SPRING AND I AM BLIND. And hung it back.

On his way home he was pleased to notice the vagrant had a full cap."

My thanks to Alan Fletcher for the story.

Bonus: WORJ Getting my vote for rock station of the year.

May I show you something in red: My love of Spanish reds continues. Vina Alarba 2005. Self-described via label as "Old vines grenache." Big, jammy red under $10. Another in the Jorge Ordonez portfolio.

"There is no great trick to doing research. The problem is to get people to use it - particularly when the research reveals that you have been making mistakes. We all have a tendency to use research as a drunkard uses a lamppost - for support, not for illumination." David Ogilvy

What American accent do you have? Find out - take the short quiz here. No surprise, it seems I have the neutral or "no accent" most often used by newscasters. Being a former broadcast journo this appears to be a reasonable reading.

Hearing in the US Senate today on the 700 MHz auction. More info and access to live webcast here.

MarketWatch scribe Jon Friedman interviews Charles Gibson...

"I'm not a great fan of the ratings," he said. "I'm stumped about how it reverberates," Gibson shrugged. "We're a country of list-makers." Then he contemplated how the despondent newspaper companies have it easier on one level, since the public is fixated on factoids such as television ratings and box-office tallies. "I wish we published newspaper circulations!" Gibson exclaimed.

Charlie is spot-on. Read the entire piece here. We are close to the day when we compare all measured media by reach. Radio's move to PPM is a smart move for a number of reasons but most importantly it reveals the strength of the medium - reach. Once we get a good grasp of reach we can move on to some measure of engagement.

Bonus: Outstanding use of video by Avril Lavigne. "When You're Gone." Thanks to programming ace Brian Kelly for the tip. If you can watch this and not be somewhat moved please do consult a mental health professional.

"Have fun at what you do. It will be reflected in your work. No one likes a grump except another grump!" William Swanson

Swanson's Unwritten Rules of Management: unwritten rule number twenty five...

"We all spend many, many hours doing what we do. It is much more pleasant to spend those hours with people who have a bounce in their step and a smile on their face than with those who mistakenly associate professionalism with being sour and dour.

I enjoy what I do. I like working with others who feel the same way and I believe the work product reflects this.

I know our customers appreciate a team that enjoys what it does."

Bill is so totally on the mark. Are you having fun?

Which reminds me of David Ogilvy...

"Advertising agencies are fertile ground for office politics. You should work hard to minimize them, because they take up energy which can better be devoted to our clients; some agencies have been destroyed by internal politics. Here are some ways to minimize them:

1. Always be fair and honest in your own dealings; unfairness and dishonesty at the top can demoralize an agency.
2. Never hire relatives or friends.
3. Sack incurable politicians.
4. Crusade against paper warfare. Encourage your people to air their disagreements face-to-face.
5. Discourage secrecy.
6. Discourage poaching.
7. Compose sibling rivalries.

...Try to make working at Ogilvy & Mather fun. When people aren't having any fun, they seldom produce good advertising. Kill grimness with laughter. Maintain an atmosphere of informality. Encourage exuberance. Get rid of sad dogs who spread gloom."

Agree with the great Mr Ogilvy especially the "get rid of sad dogs." You have an obligation to your team to get rid of the sad dogs. In my experience this is also a mitzvah, an act of kindness that benefits, ultimately, the sad dog terminated. "If you are not happy here, if you are not having fun, we need to talk." In those cases where you are not able to work with the sad dog to better their situation and get them performing or they are not willing to step up, do their part to better the situation then you must part ways. Tolerating or excusing the behavior and attitude of sad dogs ("That's just how Jennifer is, you know, always in a bad mood, hates her job"), working around sad dogs ("Let's give this assignment to Alex, he'll do a much better job than Zach") or wasting valuable time attempting to change them (this qualifies as ill-starred missionary work) is simply counterproductive. Stop! Get rid of sad dogs that spread doom. Your team will thank you and someday so may the sad dog.

Telling it like it is: It's always personal, never say it's not. A close friend of mine was fired this week in another one of those downsizing moves. The division president said "it's not personal, it's business." Well, the division head is wrong. When you end a person's income, when you take away the ability of that person to put food on the table and pay their bills it's personal. You can't get any more personal than disrupting someone's ability to pay their bills. Firing is always difficult, the effect is always personal.

Anthony! The flash data indicates the Soprano's last show clocked in at 11.9 mil (the previous single episode high being about 13.4 mil). This would translate into about a 10.3 share of households (provided my arithmetic is correct based upon a data suggesting a total 115 mil TV households).

TV 101: Les Moonves on the obvious..."Networks aren't brands anymore. They used to be when it was a three-network universe. Shows are brands. CSI's a brand, Survivor's a brand, Two And A Half Men is a brand. I don't think CBS is a brand. You'd like to be known for quality, a place you can go to get good stuff. But we have some garbage on too." More via Louis Hau writing in Forbes here. People are not loyal to TV stations, they are loyal to shows. The play's the thing.

Road trip! Another fun lunch with programming ace Tom Teuber yesterday. We have decided a lunch run to Chicago is soon to be the order of the day; I'm assigned the usual concierge duties (arranging day/date/venue/A-list company). That sign post up ahead - one very cool lunch to remember. Thanks Tom.

Congrats & cheers: Google Analytics team on the upgrades - killer - thank you!

Bob Shannon wraps his four-part profile of the legendary Fred Winston. Bravos Bob, well done! Read Bob's All Them Big Dogs via AllAccess (free reg req)

Photo: Fall From Grace by Thomas Hawk. Another amazing shot. Bravo & Thank you!

"Luck, chance, and catastrophe affect business as they do all human endeavors. But luck never built a business. Prosperity and growth come only to the business that systematically finds and exploits its potential." Peter Drucker

Drucker went on to suggest three questions that will bring out the hidden potential of a business:

• What are the restraints and limitations that make the business vulnerable?
• What are the imbalances of the business?
• What are we afraid of, what do we see as a threat to this business - and how can we use it as an opportunity?

Writing this past weekend on development issues. Came across some excellent points made by the great David Oglivy. His "five characteristics which suggest...a person has the potential for rapid promotion:

1. He is ambitious.
2. He works harder than his peers - and enjoys it.
3. He has a brilliant brain - inventive and unorthodox.
4. He has an engaging personality.
5. He demonstrates respect for the creative function.

If you fail to recognize, promote and reward young people of exceptional promise, they will leave you; the loss of an exceptional man can be as damaging as the loss of an account."

Too much for too little: Now comes word the eBay cable net exchange was to charge 2% per transaction. Also hearing the platform feature set did not allow for any value added. Some cable folks are saying the exchange was just too expensive at 2%.

Best music in the history of TV: Little Steven says it doesn't get better than the music on The Sopranos. Read the Reuters/Billboard story via WaPo here.

100 million - the number of iPods Apple says it has sold. According to Nick Wingfield writing is this morning's Wall Street Journal Apple grabbed a 73.7% share of the MP3 market (US retail) in February. SanDisk was second with a 9.0% share; Microsoft picked up 2.3% of the February retail market. (data: NPD Group). Read A New Wireless Player Hopes to Challenge iPod via WSJ here (sub req).

Wired: Eric Schmidt interviewed by Fred Vogelstein via Wired here.

"How should we think about Google today?

Think of it first as an advertising system. Then as an end-user system - Google Apps. A third way to think of Google is as a giant supercomputer. And a fourth way is to think of it as a social phenomenon involving the company, the people, the brand, the mission, the values - all that kind of stuff."

"Google’s revenue and employee head count have tripled in the last two years. How do you keep from becoming too bureaucratic or too chaotic?

It’s a constant problem. We analyze this every day, and our conclusion is that the best model is still small teams running as fast as they can and tolerating a certain lack of cohesion. Attempting to provide too much order dries out the creativity. What’s needed in a properly functioning corporation is a balance between creativity and order.

But we’ve reined in certain things. For example, we don’t tolerate the kind of “Hey, I want to have my own database and have a good time” behavior that was effective for us in the past."

Bravo Eric! Well done Fred.

Congrats & cheers: Roger Ogden, Gannett Broadcasting CEO, named B&C's Broadcaster of the Year. “Good ideas can come from any level of the organization, from any source. We can’t sit back and hope and expect that’s going to happen naturally or automatically. So we’ve developed a culture in which we encourage people to participate.” Read B&C item here. Ellen Weiss named VP of News for NPR. Well deserved!

Google Maps - create your own personalized, annotated maps - very cool.

Photo: Madison twilight by KAP'n Craig

Amazing image, thanks. To appreciate this image please click on the photo title above, on the flickr page select "all sizes" above the image, upper left and choose original size. Also keep in mind he shot this from a kite, probably standing on the lake (which is now frozen) and it was single digit cold when he shot it. Bravo KAP'n Craig! (Closed circuit to Madison media: hire this guy or at least license his images for a charity calendar, your website, et al)

Craig Wilson uses a "kite cam" to create his very cool pics. Check out and buy, via Amazon, his book Hanging by a Thread: A Kite's View of Wisconsin here.

"A talent can be cultivated in tranquility; a character only in the rushing stream of life." Goethe

Web 2.0 in less than five minutes: Michael Wesch, an assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University, has produced a killer video. Highly recommended. Check it out via YouTube here. Thanks to Dave for the tip.

Nobody liked it but the prospects: The Salesgenie.com Super Bowl ad, one of the ads rated poorly by the ad community, critics and citizens alike, seems to have been a good investment. The company says they signed up more than 10,000 new subscribers by Monday afternoon (they needed 700 new subs to break even on the ad). Salon's King Kaufman has more, Shockingly, the experts - that's all of us - got it wrong on that Salesgenie Super Bowl ad here. Reminds me of something the great David Ogilvy said about those infomercials run in the dead of night..."they work."

The sail to Sydney: Ron Fell posting from the Pacific here. Bravo Ron! Well done.

The Wizards of Buzz: Jamin Warren and John Jurgensen do a fine job reviewing the bidding that has become known as social bookmarking. From Digg.com to Reddit.com to Del.icio.us to StumbleUpon the gang's all here. Read their well-written WSJ piece here. Bravo Jamin and John!

Google will crack the code: Some folks are making a mistake by counting out the Google Audio initiative. Of course there are "hurdles" but none that can not be overcome. View this as a marathon rather than a sprint. It's way early on. Miguel Helft writes about Google via cnet/NYT here

Tribune "self-help" strategy: Sarah Ellison and Dennis K. Berman update the Tribune story writing in WSJ here. My thought is should they sell off broadcast TV they are not likely to retain WGN radio. Assuming a bcf of 40%, a modest 10 multiple would yield $193,600,000. My guess is the station could go for close to $200 mil. Of course several other factors would be in play. Cubs rights and real estate issues could have impact that might not be insignificant.

Wheredaguy?: Ron Jacobs' website, ronjacobsonline, is MIA. Any insight into what's up with the Big Kahuna? My hope is all is well with Ron.

Burger invented here: Was it CT, TX or WI? Fred Winston blogs on the birth of the burger here

W2W Anna Nicole: The freak show was off the chain last week. The characters in the Anna Nicole drama being way too rich to resist. The biopics, the tabs, the November sweeps, the books, the courts, the lawyers, this one is only beginning. Steve Dahl served up his usual, unvarnished, pov..."Friday morning on Today on NBC, they said that Anna Nicole was famous for being famous. It seems to me that she was famous for having really large breasts and an extremely messed up personal life." Read Steve's take here.

Thomas Szasz: "The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget."