(ANOTHER FABULOUS DAVID BROOKS EDITORIAL) Every age produces its own sort of fables, and our age seems to have produced The White Messiah fable.This is the oft-repeated story about a manly young adventurer who goes into the wilderness in search of thrills and profit. But, once there, he meets the native people and finds that … Read More
I miss T-Buff’s white suit, and his reassuring vow: “We will…approve your credit.” I miss Suzuki Man. I miss Jim Skinner’s quivering liver. Heck, I even miss Jim and Jimmy. Re-gard-less of what the tastemakers might say, not all “bad” advertising is bad. And today, nobody does Bad better than Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal—a … Read More
“An idealogical system in conflict with the facts generally finds it prudent to defer to itself.”—David Berlinski “I’ve gone into hundreds of fortune-teller’s parlors, and I’ve been told thousands of things. But nobody ever told me I was a policewoman getting ready to arrest them.” —New York City Detective “Write a wise saying and your … Read More
Flipping through channels the other day, I stopped briefly at PBS’s latest ode to Darwin. After a couple minutes, it hit me: That whole hypothesis about adaptive behavior and natural selection is so true! Witness, for example, how adeptly a biologist camouflages his conclusions against that vast body of fact which utterly undermines the theory … Read More
I’m on a horse – – If you haven’t already seen the latest Old Spice body-wash ad, stop reading and click on this link immediately: http://bit.ly/smell-like-me First, I love the creative strategy: Don’t sell this product directly to men. Sell it to women—who make the majority of those purchasing decisions. Next, find a guy who’s … Read More
GISI Case Study
Small Site Scores Big. We recently launched a nice website on a shoestring budget for a buddy of ours—who manufactures the world’s greatest supplemental game feeder. Unbeknownst to us, Hindsight Management (led by Birmingham ad legend Jim Riley) evaluated the site’s effectiveness using The Riley Persuasion Index. Jim reports that it earned the highest score … Read More
NOTE: Sadly, The Birmingham News has dropped my favorite Editorial Page columnist, David Brooks. Below is a condensed version of a column of his I saved years ago. We now have to work under the assumption that every American has a tattoo. Whether we are at a formal dinner, at a professional luncheon, at a … Read More
(Original post, 2.2.10 — Tuesday before the Super Bowl) If you haven’t seen the latest e-Trade ad, they’ve replaced the sweet-but-worldly-wise baby (who’s loved, at latest count, by everyone who’s ever seen him) with an insufferable, sarcasm-spouting smartass. And while I’m not privy to e-Trade’s research (which would have to indicate that this change of … Read More
(OK, so it doesn’t work for everybody.) In the space of roughly 3 minutes during Jay Leno’s 9:00 debut show on September 14, Kanye West effectively transformed himself from a leading candidate for my personal All-Time Celebrity Buffoon award to a guy I suddenly liked way more than I ever did before his Taylor Swift … Read More
