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| August 1, 2008: Coming Soon!
|
| July 1, 2008: Ogilvy's masterful
trifecta
"I
never tell one client that I cannot attend his sales convention because I
have a previous engagement with another client; successful polygamy depends
upon pretending to each spouse that she is the only pebble on your
beach."
"You have only 30 seconds in a TV commercial. If you grab attention
in the first frame with a visual surprise, you stand a better chance of holding
the viewer. People screen out a lot of commercials because they open with
something dull... When you advertise fire-extinguishers, open with the
fire."
"Experience has taught me that advertisers get the best results when
they pay their agency a flat fee. It is unrealistic to expect your agency
to be impartial when its vested interest lies wholly in the direction of
increasing your commissionable advertising."
--
--A
selection of quotes from the late American advertising master David Ogilvy,
who died nine years ago this month.
top |
| June 1, 2008: Effective Advertising
Made Easy
"Effective advertising is that which reaches, at the lowest possible
cost, the most people who can and will buy what you have to sell. Note the
restrictions. You don't succeed merely by reaching the most people. It's
a more complex marketing mix than that. You must reach the most people who
can and will buy what you have to sell. You go for class, not mass, selectivity,
not scattershot."
--Herschell
Gordon Lewis in How to Make Your Advertising Twice as Effective at Half
the Cost
top |
| May 1, 2008: It's the product,
stupid
"Among the classic mistakes made by leaders of major companies is the
illusion that the power of the product is derived from the power of the
organization. It's just the reverse. The power of the organization is derived
from the power of the product. The position that the product owns in the
prospect;'s mind. Coca Cola has power. The Coca-Cola Company is merely a
reflection of that power."
--Al
Ries and Jack Trout in their 1981 best seller, Positioning: the Battle
for Your Mind
top |
| April 1, 2008: Advertising
starts with the prospect
"Whether the advertiser or the advertising creator realizes it (and
sometimes they don't) all advertising begins with the prospect. Since all
advertising of goods and services presents an answer to the needs of someone,
somewhere, the advertiser is always talking to an individual within an identified
segment of the total population. There is no such thing as a universal product,
that is, one for which everyone is a prospective buyer."
--Stan
Rapp And Tom Collins from their hit 1987 book, Maximarketing
top |
| March 1, 2008: Never say we:
much better to say "I"
"Another wrong notion: the editorial "we" may be okay in editorials
but it has crept into letter writing where it seldom is right. A letter is,
or should be, a very warm, personal document, an exchange between two people.
Many letter writers have the strange idea that saying "we" instead of "I"
is modest and creates a good impression. The impression it actually creates
is that the reader has received a communication from a company, a corporation,
an institution, or a board of directors. They can't sense an individual.
And if they can't, all of the valuable human relationships that can do so
much to create a good feeling are lost."
--Ferd
Nauheim in his book, Letter Perfect.
top |
| February 1, 2008: Hardest ads
to write? Guess what
"The requirements of a typical Direct Response advertisement are the
most rigid of all. It is not enough just to attract the reader's attention.
Experience has proved that headlines and illustrations that are merely
startling--arouse curiosity only--usually result in few responses. A Direct
Response advertisement has as its purpose immediate action. Yet it must deal
with a disinterested, even hostile audience attitude. It must cause the reader
to take an action he hadn't been contemplating. It's a tremendous task."
--Alec
Benn in his book, The 27 Most Common Mistakes in Advertising
top |
| January 1, 2008: Transcend
the ordinary
"This is a world of hungry and eager competitors constantly thinking
up new things to do and new ways to do them, leapfrogging over the present,
end-running around the powerfully entrenched. Their imagination is at work,
and so must be the imagination of these strongly established enterprises
that got where they are largely via the imagination and enterprise of their
managerial predecessors."
--From
Theodore Levitt's classic, The Marketing Imagination
top |
| December 1, 2007: The Great
Advertising Conspiracy
"There is a great conspiracy participated in by advertising agencies,
radio and television stations and networks, advertising consultants, newspapers,
magazines and others to mislead corporate management about the effectiveness
of advertising. Those who control the purse strings are not told about campaigns
costing millions that fail to make any difference in company sales."
--Allen
Benn in his book, The 27 Most Common Mistakes in Advertising
top |
| November 1, 2007: Wheildon
on design
"Design should not be mere decoration and abstraction, but part of
the business of communication...a design that looks exciting but is
incomprehensible is nothing more than a beautifully painted square wheel...good
design is a balance between function and form. and the greater of these is
function...newspapers, magazines and advertisements should be vehicles for
transmitting ideas, and their design should be an integral part of that process,
forever under scrutiny...any design that comes between author and reader
is wrong."
--Colin
Wheildon, author of Communicating, Or Just Making Pretty
Shapes.
top |
| October 1, 2007: Clint says
he's just a director
"I'm sort of concentrating on directing at this point in my life, because
I learn something new every time. Something new makes your life
interesting...you're a constant student of life...of what you do, which for
me is to make films. I would always hope that the last film I did would be
the very best. The last film I did was "Letters from Iwo Jima." I felt I
was in the groove on that one, and on 'Million Dollar Baby' and 'Mystic River.'
"
--Clint
Eastwood, as reported by Adam Tanner on Yahoo! News.
top |
| September 1, 2007: Ogilvy strikes
again
"When are you generalists going to learn what kind of advertising sells
and what kind does not? When that day comes, ask your Direct Marketing colleagues
to help you. I say colleagues. Stop treating us as poor relations.
Grow out of your arrogance. Send us your copywriters and your art directors.
We will teach them how to sell."
--The
late David Ogilvy attacking General Advertising in his famous Paris speech
of more than 20 years ago.
top |
| August 1, 2007: Persuasion,
motivation equal sales
"The copywriter uses words as tools to persuade and
motivate an audience. You persuade your readers that you have something
valuable to offer. You motivate them to acquire it for themselves. This is
the essence of effective copywriting, whether you opt for the hard sell or
the subliminal suggestion."
--Richard
Bayan in "Words That Sell".
top |
| July 1, 2007: The art of money
making
"Introducing me at an Asian Advertising Congress in New Delhi the other
day, the vice president and Chief Justice of India said that I had mastered
what Stephen Leacock called "The art of arresting the human intelligence
long enough to get money from it."
--The
late David Ogilvy in his book, "Ogilvy on Advertising."
top |
| June 1, 2007: It's direct that
makes the dough
"While traditional agencies grapple with the flight of budgets to direct
and interactive marketing., their counterparts on the other side are thrilled.
DM agencies have long sold their services based on performance, be it orders,
inquiries, calls or visits. Branding paved the way for building trust, but
it is direct marketing that does the heavy lifting."
--Mickey
Alam Kahn, editor, DM News
top |
| May 1, 2007: The offer is still
the king
"Except for changing the product itself, nothing can make as big a
difference as a change in the basic proposition. There are exceptions, but
this is still the rule. Changes in the price, the terms, the guarantee, the
way the product is combined or segmented--all of these will show up faster
in result tabulations than most changes in copy and layout. The rule: The
substance of the offer outweighs the form of its presentation.
--Ed
Nash, in his book Direct Marketing, published in 1982
top |
| April 1, 2007: Ogilvy strikes
again
The late David Ogilvy, lecturing his associates at Ogilvy & Mather,
told the following story about a copywriter at another ad agency. "Every
day at precisely five o'clock, that man gets up from his desk, puts on his
hat and goes home." After letting that sink in to his nervous audience, Ogilvy
said, "Think of the extraordinary self-discipline that requires."
--Passed
along to JR by our mutual friend, Andy Byrne
top |
| March 1, 2007: Copy that sells
uses hard facts and benefits
"Facts are believable, whereas general statements are generic. Using
facts in your creative will make you more believable and gain you more response.
Give your copy news value. Use facts and names. Be specific. Tell who, what,
why, when, where and how. Copy that sells is copy that is long on hard facts
and benefits. Copy is not long or short. It is interesting or uninteresting.
It is really as simple as that."
--From
Power Direct Marketing, by my friend, the late Ray Jutkins
top |
| February 1, 2007: Direct headlines
by 4 to 1
"In a study of ads, those with direct headlines offered news or told
of a product benefit. Those with indirect headlines were of four different
types: (1) teasers (2) word play (3) brag and boast (4) say little or nothing.
Typical headlines in those four categories included 'Strictly for the birds,'
and 'Shop, look or listen.' Those in the news/benefit group included 'Instant
oatmeal creams in 60 seconds,' and 'Grapefruit cools you off and keeps you
slim.' Analysis of results showed that ads with news/benefit headlines were
four times more effective than ads with indirect headlines."
--The
late Andrew Joseph Byrne in the 1993 edition of "Which Ad Pulled Best?"
top |
| January 1, 2007: Response TV;
it's the whole show
"The slickest, costliest general advertising agency TV ad productions
cannot make a prospective customer get up and do something now. Consumer
advertising seeks to leave its audience with a single impression that influences
their behavior at some time in the future. But direct response TV advertising
works immediately. It takes customers by the hand and leads them every step
of the way up and through the sales transaction. Our TV commercial has to
involve viewers the moment they experience it. We are the whole show, embracing
the message and the means of ordering."
--John
Witek, author of Response Television
top |
|
| December 1, 2006: Do your customers
love you?
"Getting customers to love you isn't as simple or random as pulling
petals from a daisy . Like any relationship, it takes work. Customer satisfaction
is crucial in e-mail, where customers can disengage from your brand with
one click on the unsubscribe link or spam button. You must be respectful
of their permission and privacy, attentive to their preferences in the relevancy
of your messages and responsive to their requests in a timeframe consistent
with a real-time medium."
--Dave
Lewis, VP, StrongMail Systems, Inc.,, Redwood Shores, CA.
top |
| November 1, 2006: Warning;
Don't send ads
'Toot your horn softly. In the search for higher ROI, e-mail marketers
must strike a delicate balance between their mission to market brand and
product, and their customers' acute sensitivity to receiving unwanted, irrelevant
messages. Subscribers to e-mail newsletters want actual news, not advertisements
disguised as newsletters."
--Elaine
O'Gorman writing in the Oct. 15, DIRECT magazine
top |
| October 1, 2006: $5 limit May
go in CO
Colorado's largest casinos are considering a ballot initiative to eliminate
the $5 bet limit at the state's three gaming towns--Black Hawk, Central City
and Cripple Creek...Colorado is the only state in the country with a $5 bet
limit...the state gaming industry distributed $100.1 million in taxes in
the fiscal year...those figures would probably surge if the bet limit is
eliminated."
Source:
The Denver Post
top |
| September 1, 2006: "Ridiculous,
impenetrable TV ads"
"Are you as numbed as I am by the ridiculous, sometimes impenetrable
and too-often obnoxious ads that pepper local television stations and newspapers?
Do you laugh at the illogical use of celebrities to sell something they couldn't
possibly represent except as a cynical celebrity-for-hire?"
--Herschell
Lewis., Curmudgeon-at Large, writing in the August issue of Direct magazine.
Your
faithful reporter answers, "Yes, Herschell, I am!"
top |
| August 1, 2006: Response is
the objective
"What makes direct response advertising different from general advertising?
One word sums it up: response. No matter what type of direct marketing media
you use to target your customers and prospects, your primary objective is
to generate response--immediate or delayed, in the mail or online."
--Pat
Friesen, president of Pat Friesen & Company, writing in the July issue
of Target Marketing magazine
top |
| July 1, 2006: Wooden feet smell
"I lack the art criticism credentials that would qualify me to say
whether the wood feet...are art or merely craft. But I do have enough advertising
experience to know that the picture and the accompanying message are woefully
inadequate when it comes to making prospective customers want to learn more
about hardwood flooring."
--Thomas
L. Collins, the Direct magazine "Makeover Maven," critiquing an ad that showed
a pair of wooden feet and used 11 words of copy. See John's tip of July 24
for the full story.
top |
| June 1, 2006: Are slogans and
taglines obsolete?
"Can it be that taglines and slogans are obsolete? We have to split
the answer, and the bottom half of the split is easy enough: when prospective
customers say, "What dumb advertising agency came up with that, and what
dummy at the advertiser approved it?"...then it's obsolete.
--Herschell
Gordon Lewis in a column in Direct magazine that decries the current crop
of say-nothing slogans and taglines. Mr Lewis's 29th book, Open Me Now,
was published last year.
top |
| May 1, 2006: Subject lines:
how miserable can you get?
"One reason for the miserable response to e-mail offers is that it
costs nothing to send an e-mail so nobody has any incentive to spend time
making it a good offer."
--Columnist
Denny Hatch in Target Marketing, bemoaning the lousy subject lines
that gets most commercial e-mail deleted before it's ever opened.
top |
| April 1, 2006: Resistance to
mass media is growing
"It's a tech jungle out there. New applications are springing up all
over the globe, with some of the most exciting...related to new media
opportunities. These technological developments are rooted in marketers'
increasing displeasure with the performance of traditional media, causing
them to look for different avenues by which to reach and influence a populace
that continues to resist mass-media push advertising methods."
--Hallie
Mummert, Editor-in-Chief, Target Marketing magazine
top |
| March 1, 2006: Make Mine Money
A
double dose this month for all you money fans. Both are from Leo Rosten's
Carnival of Wit:
"It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating".
--Oscar
Wilde
"Why
is there so much month left at the end of the money?"
--Maurice
Chevalier/John Barrymore
top |
| February 1, 2006: Managing
customers for value
"If
the focus of your database is purely managing your own customers, rather
than acquisition, you must ask which pieces of information are going to
significantly impact your ability to increase the value of a customer."
--Maria
Marsala-Herlihy, senior VP for KnowledgeBase, as quoted by Irene Cherkassky
in the Jan., 2006, Target Marketing magazine.
top |
| January 1, 2006: Hatch's Tribute
to McLean
"The
coda of The Basics of Copy is worth remembering: "It's not what you say,
but what is believed; it's not what you mean, but what is understood."
--Columnist
Denny Hatch writing in Target Marketing magazine about the passing of Ed
McLean, brilliant direct marketing writer and author
top |
|
| December 1, 2005: It's backwards;
now prospects seek businesses
"Over
the past five years, marketing and advertising have undergone a radical paradigm
shift. Aided by the proliferation of broadband, wireless access and the rise
of search engines, it's now the prospect who seeks the business. With the
media in their hands, consumers determine when, where and how to interact
with a brand."
--Jeffrey
Lattner writing in the November, 2005 issue of Target Marketing magazine
top |
| November 1, 2005: Tossing Your
Cookies
"The
term 'tossing your cookies' has never had an exactly positive connotation,
but for marketers it's becoming even more of an unsavory concept. Recent
studies suggest consumers are deleting cookies from their Web browsers quicker
than ever, diminishing their usefulness as measurement tools."
--Brian Quinton, Direct Magazine
top |
| October 1, 2005: A nation hooked
on plastic
"If
no one used plastic for credit there wouldn't be any need for companies like
CardSystems Solutions in the first place. Plastic credit cards, plastic debit
cards, plastic ID cards, plastic membership cards, even plastic players cards,
are ubiquitous. It takes a sturdy, self-reliant, debt-free zealot and martial
artist to be able to be plastic-averse these days."
--Internet and computer security expert and author Hal Berghel
(www.berghel.net and
hlb@berghel.net) commenting on the discovery that CardSystems Solutions had
let the credit card information of 40 million customers leak out. Story appeared
in the Fall, 2005 issue of Gaming & Leisure magazine.
top |
| September 1, 2005: Casino Careers
Online
Picture
this: You're employed by a casino, but you'd like to better yourself, so
you consult with an online job service. Can they assure you that your current
employer won't discover you're job hunting? Beth Deighan, president of Casino
Careers, answers the question. "Some of our applicants do not want their
identities known while they are still employed at another gaming property...so
they can designate whether each resume is confidential or open access."
--Adapted from a story by Sharon Harris in the July issue of Casino Enterprise
Management
top |
| August 1, 2005: Thanks, Dennis;
Thanks, Jack
"This
time it's not a quote; it's just a classy gesture by two guys. Before Jack
Binion received his Lifetime Achievement Award at Casino Marketing, the 2005
National Conference, organizer Dennis Conrad asked him for a favor. Dennis
had written an excellent column about Jack in Casino Journal in 2003,
and he offered to make hundreds of copies if Jack would sign them for every
attendee at the conference. Jack said yes, and when the ceremony ended he
sat patiently for nearly an hour, signing column after column. Hundreds
(including your faithful reporter) walked away with their own lifetime keepsake
from one of the men who practically invented relationship marketing. Thank
you, Dennis; thank you, Jack."
top |
| July 1, 2005: Skip TV: Start
a dialogue
"For
the money you might spend on the production and airtime for a single 30-second
television commercial, you can implement a loyalty marketing test program
and start a real dialogue with your customers."
--Tom
, creative consultant for Frequency Marketing, Inc., Cincinnati, writing
in Direct magazine
top |
| June 1, 2005: Net vs. live:
A different poker game
"A lot of guys
who are good (poker) players online have never played in a live game and
guys who play the live games don't want to play the Internet because they
like to see the players and get a better feel for them. The camaraderie is
definitely not there. But even on the Internet you can get 'tells' by the
way they play their hands and the time it takes them to act. They're electronic
tells."
--"Poker
Godfather" Jack Binion as quoted by Roger Gros in Poker Biz
magazine
top |
| May 1, 2005: Congratulations?
Punch that delete key
"A suggestion for
the preservation of money, sanity and any integrity still attached to direct
e-marketing. When a message starts with 'Congratulations!' run, don't walk
to the nearest delete key."
--Herschell
Gordon Lewis in his "Curmudgeon at Large" column in Direct
magazine
top |
| April 1, 2005: Words okay on
Web site, not in ads?
"Seems
like it's OK to spread out lots of words of explanation for customers at
the "back end" (the pages of copy and graphics at the advertiser's Web site).
But it's not OK to expose those same prospects to more than a few telegraphic
words in teeny type at the "front end" (the print ad that's the doorway to
the back end)."
--Tom
Collins, the "Makeover Maven" in Direct magazine.
top |
| March 1, 2005: Adding Drama
"You
can never underestimate the power of adding drama to your message. Information
can always be presented in a dramatic, informative, rational and emotionally
rich way."
--Neil Feinstein, director of creative strategy,
True North, Inc., as quoted by Direct magazine., Feb., 2005
top |
| February 1, 2005: Direct mail
back in front once again
"With
the Can Spam Act and do-not-call laws, snail mail is once again the workhorse
of direct marketing. And all direct marketers better learn how to write it,
design it and find precisely the right people to send it to, or they will
wind up in the same career ash heap as the smarty-pants, dot-com wizards
of the late 1990s."
--Columnist Denny Hatch in Target Marketing magazine, Jan. 2005
top |
| January 1, 2005: phishing top online
threat
"It
takes a lot of wrongdoing to mobilize the FBI, nine of the top 10 US banks,
and corporations like Microsoft and America Online."
--The lead on a story on the evils of phishing,
the fastest-growing form of online identity theft, by Ross Wehner, Denver
Post
top |
| December 1, 2004: a case of sore feet
"If
slot operators came away with one sure thing from this year's Global Gaming
Expo, it was a case of sore feet."
--Marian
Green, editor of Slot Manager magazine, commenting on the show's immense
selection of slot themes and game types
top |
| November 1, 2004: Realize you are always
selling
"Under-promise
and over-deliver; Welcome complaints; Give customers what they want to buy,
not what you want to sell; Realize you are always selling; Be known for something
that's yours alone; Keep it simple."
--From
Murray Raphel's "Selling Rules, 52 Ways You Can Achieve Sales Success"
top |
| October 1, 2004: Make your words paint
pictures
"Consider
the word 'quality.' What does this mean? Nothing to anyone, because the word
has lost its impact and no longer draws any specific word picture."
--Herschell
Lewis in How to Make Your Advertising Twice as Effective at Half the
Cost
top |
| September 1, 2004: A polite Ogilvy had
the answer
The
late David Ogilvy, in "Ogilvy on Advertising," said he once talked to the
head of the famous J. Walter Thompson agency, who told him he had assigned
four of his people to try to identify factors that make advertising work.
"They have already identified twelve." the gentleman told Ogilvy, who later
wrote, "I was too polite to tell him that I had ninety-six."
top |
| August 1, 2004: How DOES advertising
sell cars?
When
Chrysler-Jeep division VP Jeff Bell began to investigate video games as an
advertising vehicle, another Chrysler exec said, "I don't see how it can
sell cars." Bell snapped back, "Prove to me how advertising sells cars."
--As quoted in the Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2004
top |
| July 1, 2004: Experts beat celebrities
as pitchmen
"Testimonials
from celebrities get high recall scores, but I stopped using them. Readers
remember the celebrities and forget the product. What's more, they assume
the celebrity has been bought.. But testimonials from experts can be
persuasive--like having an ex-burglar testify he had never been able to crack
a Chubb safe."
--The
late David Ogilvy in his famous "Ogilvy on Advertising"
top |
| June 1, 2004: Secrets of a listener
"The
fine art of keeping one's mouth closed takes practice but does several things.
It allows you to hear another point of view. It demonstrates respect for
others. It gives you time to think."
--Chief
Information Officer Dan Garrow, Mohegan Sun, as quoted in the Spring 2004
issue of Gaming & Leisure magazine.
top |
| May 1, 2004: Lost in the credit card
doldrums
"My
wife has her own Platinum Card. In fact, she had her Platinum while I was
still in the Gold Card ghetto."
--Herschell
Gordon Lewis, in a scathing column on credit cards, April, 2004, Direct Magazine.
His headline, "Go ahead, leave home without it."
top |
| April 1, 2004: Fascinating sales point
by Ogilvy
"Don't
be a bore. Tell the truth. But make the truth fascinating."
--The
late David Ogilvy as quoted by Peter J. Fogel in DM News.
top |
| March 1, 2004: Best customers are worth
19.5 average ones
"These
days, it's better to focus on retention plans that ensure your best customers
remain happy and loyal, especially the high value customer...whose worth
to you over his lifetime is the equivalent of 19.5 average value
customers."
--Michael King, group VP and creative director
of the Grizzard Performance Group in Atlanta, GA, writing in DM News.
top |
| February 1, 2004: A spammer's nightmare:
An E-Mail tax
"A
two cents per e-mail tax (say, split evenly between federal and state
governments) would mean spammers who send out 10 million messages would pay
$200,000 in taxes. Gee, that would certainly crimp their style."
--Columnist and
author Denny Hatch in Target Marketing magazine, Jan., 2004
top |
| January 1, 2004: The incredible success
of Indian gaming
"One
thing I know for sure after 15 years of watching: Indian gaming is impacting
the United States, business and politics in ways I could never have imagined
and it is a long way from over."
--Ken
Adams in "The Adams Analysis," a monthly report he writes for Compton Dancer
Consulting, a Las Vegas based firm.
top |
| December 1, 2003: Billboards: Too serious,
too confusing
"I
hate to count the number of times I have nearly veered off the road trying
to figure out what a wordy billboard is all about. Billboards today are serious
and confusing."
--Columnist Denny Hatch in Target Marketing
magazine
top |
| November 1, 2003: Direct mail use will
rise again in the new year
"Recent
studies...cite direct mail as one of several categories projected to grow
next year...direct mail lends itself to predictable response rates and yields
customer-specific data...it is widely accepted by consumers as a means
of...continuity/loyalty communication."
--Don
McKenzie, president/CEO of CC3, a direct marketing services firm in Ivyland,
PA, writing in the Oct. 20 edition of DM News
top |
| October 1, 2003: The right
to know
"Commercial enterprises have begin to assume it's their right to know what
according to any principles of democracy and freedom they have no right to
know."
--Featured
columnist Herschell Gordon Lewis in the Sept. 15 issue of Direct magazine.
top |
| September 1, 2003: Poor Chi Chi:
his caddies are mystified
I used to caddy for 25 cents a hole, and if you lost the ball a kick in the
rump. Now, my caddies, you pay them close to $100,000 a year, and you hit
it and they say, "Where did it go?" --Chi Chi Rodriguez as quoted by Adam
Schefter in the Denver Post. (Okay, it's not a marketing quote--but it's
funny.)
top |
| August 1, 2003: Committees create
those lousy ads you see on TV
""Much
of the messy advertising you see on television today is the product of
committees. Committees can criticize advertisements but they should never
be allowed to create them.":
--The late David
Ogilvy as quoted by Dean Rieck in DM News
top |
| July 1, 2003: The problem with
CRM: it's unfocused
"CRM's
problems are typical of today's unfocused management style. Who's watching
this department of the store? The IT manager. It's within the realm of his
or her technical experience, but not psychological experience."
top |
| June 1, 2003: How to build an
elephant
"The
client supplies a torso, the copywriter supplies some legs, the art director
some gray paint, the account executive a tail, the research department a
blueprint, the company attorney the protective skin, and next thing you know
you've got an elephant--more or less."
--Tom
Collins in Direct magazine, trying to explain how an ad agency came up with
a particularly bad magazine ad
top |
| May 1, 2003: Get a writer to look
over company policy
"What should these big corporations do? First of all, they should have a
stated policy that every customer is precious. Then they should hire...an
experienced direct mail copywriter to look over every piece of correspondence
and telephone script."
--Target Marketing Magazine columnist Denny
Hatch, furious at two major corporations whose policies insulted him
top |
| April 1, 2003: In wartime, don't
stop marketing
"In the event of war, we must actively engage consumers in the marketplace.
We can't pull back. We have to advertise. We have to market. It's an affirmative
obligation we have both to our brands and to the economy in general."
--J. Walker Smith, president of Yanklevoich
top |
| March 1, 2003: This guy is like,
wow!
"I'm like, not at all sure I've, like, saved all the renewal notices from
Vanity Fair. I have, like, ten of them."
--Columnist and author Herschell Gordon Lewis in Direct magazine, spoofing
celebrity quotes from Vanity Fair magazine
top |
| February 1, 2003: Cashless? Coinless?
You decide.
"Smart
card, depending on how it's implemented, can deliver a cashless environment
by eliminating tickets, bills, soft count and the incremental technology
associated with coinless gaming. Cashless as used today is really coinless
and smart card is really cashless."
--David Lysne, President & COO of MIS-USA
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January
1, 2003: From "I Wish I'd Never Said That" by Past Times of Oxford,
comes these gems by producer Samuel Goldwyn. They have absolutely nothing
to do with casino marketing:
"If
you can't give me your word of honor, will you at least give me your promise?...A
verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on...Anyone who goes to
a psychiatrist needs to have his head examined."
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December 1, 2002: Bill Gates: No big deal At
Comdex
"To me, Bill Gates is just like an ordinary person."
----MGM
security guard Bruno Santarossa, on duty at Comdex in Las Vegas, quoted by
a Wall Street Journal reporter when asked if he would be impressed at meeting
Gates, one of the speakers.
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November 1, 2002: Sans publicity, Branding flops,
Says ad team
"Publicity provides the credentials that create credibility in the
advertising...until a new brand has some credentials in your mind, you are
going to ignore its advertising."
----Al
& Laura Ries in their new book, "The Fall of Advertising"
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October 1, 2002: Joe Karbo nails The big problem
With most ads
"Most
people who try to write ads adopt a stilted style, or try to be clever. There's
a problem with that: It doesn't communicate. It's all skin and no flesh.
And certainly no guts."
----Joe
Karbo in "The Lazy Man's Way to Riches"
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September 1, 2002: Minority Report: Is it a glimpse
at future DM?
"For
database marketers, the movie raised two big questions about our work, our
industry and our future...Is this the way people are going to buy?...And
are the benefits of this targeted messaging going to be overwhelmed by consumer
fears of Big Brother?"
----Ruth
P. Stevens in DM News, commenting on the sci-fi eyeball scans and automated
voices used in marketing in the film "Minority Report."
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August 1, 2002: Perception drives Privacy fears.
"The
perception of an invasion of privacy is what spooks people, not the invasion
itself."
--Target
Marketing magazine columnist Denny Hatch, furious after discovering a Web
site that greeted him with "Hi Denny," then asked him to click on "How do
we know your name?"
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July 1, 2002: Telemarketers lose in Colorado
court.
"Colorado
consumers have an undeniable right to privacy in their homes, including freedom
from annoying and unwanted telephone solicitations."
NOTE:
This is a paraphrase from US District Judge Robert Blackburn, Denver, CO,
rejecting an effort by business groups to block Colorado's new "No-Call"
telemarketing law. He noted that 800,000 of the state's two million phone
customers have registered with the do-not-call program. Casino telemarketers
take note; make sure your calls are "wanted."
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June 1, 2002: NIGA Chairman Lists qualities
Of a leader;
"Make
a friend, forgive a friend, don't be afraid to say no when you have to, be
a volunteer, be a advocate, be strong, be careful, be responsible, be happy,
look out for one another, and always take the high road. These are qualities
that have made our leaders great."
--Chairman
Ernie Stevens, Jr., of the National Indian Gaming Association during his
Commencement address at Pine Ridge High School on the Oglala Sioux Reservation
in South Dakota (from the Victor Rocha/Pechanga web site,
www.pechanga.net)
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May 1, 2002: Gambling Law's I. Nelson Rose;
The
superhero Professor I. Nelson Rose is the foremost authority on gaming law,
which is why I never miss his "Gambling and the Law" column. It's always
interesting, brightly written and filled with facts that give you a smile.
Here's an example from a recent piece: "Lawmakers often feel they have to
protect players from themselves. But regulation can go too far. In England
in 1970, players could only double-down if their first two cards totaled
ten or eleven. This rule was designed to protect players from doubling down
on whims; although computer simulations later showed that there are many
times when it is to the players' advantage to double down on other two-card
combinations, such as an ace-six when the dealer has a six face up."
--Professor
I. Nelson Rose, Whittier Law School, Costa Mesa, CA.
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April 1, 2002: Attention casinos: telemarketing
gives the privacy racket legs
"Privacy
specialists tell me that the two biggest drivers of consumer privacy angst
are telemarketing and ID theft. They say if telemarketing abuses were to
disappear tomorrow, much of the consumer-driven privacy pressure would disappear
as well."
--Marty
Abrams, Executive Director, Center for Information Policy Leadership at Hunton
& Williams, Atlanta
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March 1, 2002: "Dear Readers,
I'm
getting married this Saturday and will be on honeymoon until the 25th...the
website will be updated nightly the rest of the week. I apologize for the
inconvenience and thank you for your patience."
--Vic
Rocha, editor of Pechanga.net, Indian gaming news website, apologizing for
taking a week off to get married. (Talk about dedication!)
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February 1, 2002: "The (Super Bowl) game will
include some unusual marketing ploys. Vivendi Universal's Universal Studios
Theme Parks, whose 60-second commercial is slated to run during the third
quarter, will show a woman sunbathing at a hotel pool while enjoying a pedicure
from a character dressed as Frankenstein's monster."
--Vanessa
O'Connell, writing in the Wall Street Journal
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January 1, 2002: "Atlantic City isn't a partner
with the pageant and hasn't been in a long time. The pageant is completely
on its own in Atlantic City. The only industry in town is at best neutral
with regard to whether it's there or not."
--Former
Miss America Pageant CEO Leonard Horn, quoted by AP
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December 1, 2001: "Nearly two-thirds (68 percent)
of U.S. and U.K. marketing executives say their companies are unable to measure
a marketing campaign's return on investment (ROI), according to a report
recently released by business research firm Accenture." --Donna Loyle, managing
editor, Catalog Success magazine
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November 1, 2001: "The crux of the matter is
that, in the past, if we said we would spend $10 million on commercials on
CBS, the agency would get 15% of that....That's how you get the notion that
TV is the solution to everything, when it really isn't." --Al Stefl, senior
VP of communications for Nestle, as quoted in the Wall Street Journal
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October 1, 2001: "Companies that tell us they
pride themselves on their customer relations seem to have hired the Marquis
de Sade as their director of communications." --Direct Magazine columnist
Herschell Gordon Lewis ripping AT&T Broadband in a piece entitled, "Classic
Negative CRM"
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Septmeber 1, 2001: "With $3.3 trillion up in smoke
since the NASDAQ hit its peak in March, 2000, it's hardly surprising that
the people and institutions that helped engineer the epic Internet bubble
are being called to account."
--Megan Barnett writing in the last edition of
The Industry Standard, the No. 1 publication in the high tech industry, which
filed for bankruptcy a week after her story appeared.
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August 1, 2001: "One way of looking at AB 466
is that the Legislature has, in fact, decided to allow its hotel-casinos
to take bets online. But it does not know if this can be done safely. And,
if anything goes wrong, the legislators can say it was the regulators'
fault."
--Gaming law expert Nelson Rose in a recent column
entitled "Nevada Legalizes Internet Gaming--Maybe."
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July 1, 2001: “I have not found one reported
case in the history of the US and Canada of a player being arrested for making
a bet on the Internet. That does not mean it is legal...it also does not
mean that betting on the Internet is safe."
--I. Nelson Rose, the world's leading authority
on gambling law, in his column "Gambling and the Law" in the Summer, 2001,
issue of Gambling Times Magazine,
www.gamblingtimes.com
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June 1, 2001: “For most categories of
business, one-third of the buyers account for at least two-thirds of the
volume. The high profit segment generally delivers six to 10 times as much
profit as the low profit segment. Moreover, they are critical, not only because
of their profit contribution, but also because of their relatively small
number.”
--Garth Hallberg, from his book “All Customers
Are Not Created Equal”
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May 1, 2001: "Giving customers what they ask for is
important. But today, it is the bare minimum requirement for the right to
compete in an industry--not a competitive differentiator."
--Pete Yoo, managing partner of Innoval Group,
an international strategy consultancy, in the Wall Street Journal
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April 1, 2001: "From where I'm standing, there's
nothing more central to the Internet Economy than snack foods. I'm sure most
or all of your readers enjoy eating salty snacks from time to time."
--This is a letter to the editor of The Industry
Standard magazine, a high-tech publication, from (are you ready for this?)
Jeremy Selwyn, who describes himself as "Chief Snacks Officer" of
Taquitos.net
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March 1, 2001: "The toughest challenge they face is
that because they're fairly old and well-established, there is a fixed idea
in people's minds about what they are."
--John Lister, Lister-Butler Consulting, commenting
on problems facing CNN, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal.
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Feb. 1, 2001:"Advertising has done more
to cause the social unrest of the 20th century than any other single factor."
--Clare Booth Luce, author, politician and diplomat (1903-1987)
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Winning Friends Influencing
People
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Jan. 1, 2001:"I love the (advertising) industry, but
I hate the people. I think they're all jerks. They're shallow, insecure,
arrogant, jealous, bitter, unforgiving, small-minded; a group of cheapskates
and thieves."
--Trevor Beattie, creative director of the London office of Omicron
Group's TBWA Worldwide ad agency, as quoted in the Wall Street Journal
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Santa gets Mugged
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Dec. 1, 2000: "The company grew concerned that consumers
might interpret the edginess and irreverence of the campaign and may even
be offended."
Grace Ann Arnold, a spokeswoman for Sony Electronics, quoted in the
Wall Street Journal. She referred to a Sony TV commercial featuring Santa
Claus being chloroformed and dumped into the trunk of a car.
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Promises, Promises
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Nov. 1, 2000: "Everyone talks about how to build
successful companies. But what about the secrets of great failures? If you
had to name the single strategy most likely to alienate the public and send
customers away mad, it would have to be overpromising."
James Fallows
writing in The Industry Standard magazine
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Direct Mail Clobbers Banner Ads
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Oct. 1, 2000: “Advertisers estimate that the
percentage of people who click on banner ads, once as high as 4% to 5% of
those who look at a page, now stands at a minuscule 0.3% to 0.5%. Compare
this with the economics of the dowdy junk mail business, which typically
sees 2% of its targets not only look at mailings, but respond.”
--The
Wall Street Journal, Sept. 1, 2000
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We specialize in dumb.
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Sept. 1, 2000: There’s a lot of clicking on banners
on iwin. That’s the beauty of it. We specialize in dumb.
--Fred Krueger, founder of iwin.com, explaining in the Wall Street
Journal how visitors to his site collect chances to win prizes by clicking
on the site’s banner ads.
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But Did It Sell Any Shoes?
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JULY 10, 2000: “The act is clearly not a
sexual act. The act is the act of removing venom.”
--Ewen Cameron,
creative director at Berlin Cameron & Partners, quoted by the Wall Street
Journal on a new Reebok television commercial that shows one young man trying
to suck snakebite venom from the leg of another young man just as a female
jogger runs by and appears to mistake it for a sexual act.
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The Onset of “Pavlovian Marketing”
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May 4,
2000: “Over the past two years Harrah’s has quietly conducted
thousands of clinical-style trials to determine what gets people to gamble
more. Based on its findings, Harrah’s has developed closely guarded
marketing strategies tailored individually to the millions of low rollers
who make up its bread and butter business...Harrah’s stock price has
risen quickly in recent weeks as investors have received news of the marketing
results.” Source: Christina Binkley, The Wall Street Journal
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Wow, That’s a 500% Increase
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May 1,
2000: “The craziest and most gratuitous gaming law change that I
have ever seen: British casinos can now have 10 slot machines instead of
two.” Source: Dennis Conrad, Casino Executive Magazine
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Return of the Old Soft Sell
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April
21, 2000: “Microsoft Corp. is undertaking what executives there
call one of the most significant overhauls of its advertising approach in
its 25-year history. Rather than hawk the many products it makes, the company
plans to shift the majority of its massive ad budget to the selling of Microsoft
itself...”Microsoft is perceived as successful, effective and efficient,
but not perceived as warm and approachable,” says Mike Delman, the
company’s general manager.” Source: The Wall Street Journal
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All of a Sudden, Bigger is Better
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April
4, 2000: “MGM Grand Inc. is rolling out an image-makeover campaign
intended to give its 5,000-room flagship hotel/casino a little more gloss.
Gone will be the pitches for bargain room rates, previously touted as
‘Grand Value Days’ with rooms for $49.95. Instead, the launch focuses
on honing a racy, fun-filled “City of Entertainment” image
embracing--rather than trying to ignore--the fact that the place is tremendously
large.” Source: The Wall Street Journal
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