Spring Into Spring

I ran Hebrew School carpool for Jonathan yesterday so he could hit a tight deadline. On the way home, I stopped by Forest Park with my new camera.

The shoreline of this little stream is lined with incredible stones, like the kind you see on Peuget Sound or maybe one of the Great Lakes. They're wonderfully round and richly colored. Lots of granite and quartz. I think I even found some very dirty amethyst.

Inklings of a Fine Mind: Walter Bureck

Inklings, the Copywriter's Blog, Walter Bureck's ongoing exploration of the noble and naked truths of copywriting. His quotes from the greats are square meal deals in themselves. Just one a fine example is Bill Bernbach's famous letter, excerpted below:

In the past year I must have interviewed about 80 people – writers and artists. Many of them were from the so-called giants of the agency field. It was appalling to see how few of these people were genuinely creative. Sure, they had advertising know-how. Yes, they were up on advertising technique.

But look beneath the technique and what did you find? A sameness, a mental weariness, a mediocrity of ideas. But they could defend every ad on the basis that it obeyed the rules of advertising. It was like worshipping a ritual instead of the God.

Genuine creativity will never be a commodity. It's damned hard work to do it well, and it makes your brain ache. 90 percent of writing is the not-writing, brain bleeding foreplay. Another gem from Walter's site:

“Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.”

- Gene Fowler



Well done. A new favorite.

Talking Tractors

Business meeting chronicled for posterity. Michael and Jonathan thinking big. A good time was had by all.

Pimp My Ride? No Way. Mom My Ride.

Brilliant viral from Zima: "Don't even think about it, she's a mom."

Cambium Creative's New Camera

The Golden Age of Advertising

Rube Goldberg 2.0

Who thinks up this stuff? One brilliant contraption after another. Watch for the bullseye.


Click Here for more great videos and pictures!

Who are these people?

The Fab Faux

There are a few old saws out there that get swapped around with real authority. I've been told there are two kinds of people, Beatles people, and Elvis people. For the Beatle People, the Fab Faux.


This band formed of erstwhile and employed big time musician's-musicians in NYC. They faithfully reproduce Beatles music (kookookoochoo), live. Between their obvious scholarship, mastery, spookily-skilled voices, and that indefinable energy a live performance delivers, these guys brought it home big in a big way.

Mountain Dew Geriatric Mash Up

Viral video stretching the category:

Oh, my Saddam--Steve Martin

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ Huffington Post, written by that genius, Steve Martin.

Oh, my Saddam, how I loved your funny little ways. The way you held your teacup; the way you enjoyed those who coaxed a smile from you. I love that you found a way to exist in this mixed up world, how you thought, "why be mean when you can be nice?" Saddam, I will miss the way you would point to someone and then they would be dead, the way your puppy Pluto became a rug.

Your loyalty to family is rare in our times. When your half-brother was assassinated, Oh how we wept for you, thinking, what a terrible accident this assassination is. My Saddam, I wish we had more time with you, to find out what makes you tick, tick, tick. How your golden toilet seat will miss you!

You loved to laugh! Not many people know how to do that anymore. Real laughter doesn't come from sit-coms and comedians, real laughter comes when someone bows before you, accidentally stumbles, and then is beheaded. Especially on a staircase. Heads will roll, ha ha! Oh Saddam, if I had you back for just one moment, I would ask, if you could shoot just one person in the back of the head, who would it be? I wish it were me!

Who can deny your gifts? Your novel, so romantic and sweet. I'm sorry it was only published in Arabic and read by your friends. What a waste. And your glorious gesture for peace, the symbolic lighting of the Kuwaiti oil fields!

And now you are in heaven. How the trumpets must be sounding. A life, perhaps imperfect, but pure in motive! The world might have lost one affable curmudgeon, but heaven has received him. Saddam, enjoy the hosts of souls waiting to see you on the other side!

Pulp Fiction Christmas

Thanks, BoingBoing.

Spike Jonz Unmakes and Embooldens Gap Brand

Audacious. Incredible. Perfect. via ifilm, Spike Jonz remakes Gap in 1:30.

Turkey, like business, adheres to natural laws

The key to a moist turkey is to cook within the rules of nature.

Dark meat has much fat, white has little. Dark will be moist when white is dry, unless you bring gravity into the equation.

Figure 20-22 minutes per pound, then start the roasting at 350 degrees with the breast downward. That way the juices above moisten the meat below. After 2/3 of the total time has elapsed,flip the turkey, and brown the breast side.

Another good thing is to stuff the cavity with onions, celery and carrots, cooking dressing on the side. Aromatics plus gravity equals lusciousness.

And that's all I'm gonna say.

Unless you want to make transcendent gravy. That will be another post.

How this pertains to business will be revealed.

Public Relations Now Officially Antique

The press release turns 100, Media Culpa.

huzzah, right?

The Campaign for Dominance

I recently heard a panel of three talking heads lamenting their loss in the recent election. There was one man who several times analyzed the situation by saying, "Our candidates didn't do enough to disqualify their opponents."

I beg to differ. That is exactly the thrust of too much political advertising this season. They beat on dead horses, intoning phrases so dead from over-exposure they became meaningless. Their fingers in the wind, they adjust their message to what they think will win their election.

What about candidates who say what they believe, and believe what they say, letting chips go wherever chips go? I've been involved with two such challengers in the last two years, both with that refreshing point of view. They both lost, coming within mere hairs from unseating their opponents, but they amazed even the most jaded political hacks with their emergence from anonymity into real players.

The first campaign was Jeff Smith's when he ran in a 10-way race for Dick Gephardt's congressional seat. He came within inches of defeating the Missouri brand-name, Russ Carnahan. Jeff is articulate and passionate, well-educated and insightful. He truly listens to people. I'm not surprised that he's now our state's Senator-elect. I expect great things.

The second was Jim Trout. His campaign for state house was waged on a shoestring, and the work of nearly 100 grassroots volunteers. He was adamant that there be no personal attacks. He stuck to his beliefs, and let his opponent's record tell the story. He was more focused on communicating his plans for Missouri.



Jim lost by 183 votes, just 1.1 percent. He nearly unseated an entrenched incumbent, even though his name recognition was likely less than zero. He worked hard, knocking on every door, showing up at every coffee, walking in every parade, and working his shoestrings until they finally snapped the morning after the election, when we finally heard of his loss.

Both these candidates ran on their convictions and made no ad hominem attacks. Neither stooped to intentionally misinterpreting their opponents.

That's the lesson. The big win isn't earned by speciously discrediting your opponent with half-truths and obfuscations, but by being a real person, with real convictions, and an out-of-the can demeanor.

Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?

Last night I finally got to see Frank Popper's documentary about Jeff Smith's failed bid for Dick Gephardt's congressional seat. It was just stunning. Jeff surprised anyone who knew him when he decided to run. He was an adjunct professor at Wash U and St. Louis U, didn't even have health insurance. His parents thought he was a bit addlepated, his grandmother told a friend who'd gotten a letter asking for a donation that she ought to save her money. Someone described him as looking like he's 12-years-old, buying his clothes from Garanimals, and sounding like he's castrated.

Undeterred, he began knocking on doors, making calls, and assembling a staff of mostly former students who were absolutely brilliant and absolutely inexperienced, some as young as 20, to help manage his campaign.

Two years ago, I happened on his website. It was a Friday, and on Sunday I was giving a voter registration party. On a whim, I e-mailed him, suggesting he might want to come if he could. Shot in the dark. He came, late, after bowling with rapper Nellie earlier in the afternoon. Within five minutes, every one of us knew this 29-year-old was headed for greatness.

He's charming, funny, articulate, passionate and principled. He spent his childhood playing basketball on a team that was otherwise entirely black kids from the north side. To this day, they remain friends.

That experience was seminal. He majored in black American studies and political science. He worked for the city's school board, which opened his eyes to the entrenched deadwood that cripples the system. He started a charter school focusing on math and science for inner city kids, feeding them breakfast and keeping them two hours longer that anywhere else. He taught in universities.

So when he started the campaign, he knew what he was talking about, was passionate, a perpetual motion machine, and in the end, had amassed 350 volunteers and the reluctant admiration of the cognoscenti.

He came within a hair of upsetting the name-brand candidate, Russ Carnahan, a Casper Milquetoast if ever there was one.

What is most striking about this film is the power of passion in the face of apparent insurmountable obstacles. It puts the lie to most political strategies which hang on touching key phrases that "resonate" with voters, monumental media buys, and often, the most Machiavellian and pernicious schemes they deem palatable to voters.

Ultimately, this is the story of the authentic voice over the well-studied one. This, if you've been noticing, is near and dear to our hearts. It's our presiding principle, our "branding statement," if you will. But unlike many branding statements which seek to paint AnyCorp in its best light, we left that in our past where it belongs. It's a freeing thing, and empowering, too. Just ask Missouri Senator-Elect, Jeff Smith.

An award winning documentary chronicles Jeff Smith's first campaign, Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?". It's won the people's choice award at the Silverdoc Festival, and is one of five finalists in the International Documentary Festival. It is in the nomination process for an Academy Award.

Frank Popper was the man behind responsible for every face of the film that wasn't Jeff's. I was blown away, and so proud of of them both. Here's the trailer.

"

How NOT to Celebrate a Merger--Warning, Highly Embarrassing Video

I lurk at By Neddie Jingo from time to time, and find myself often richly rewarded. Tonight was no exception.

This is video from a company meeting, it somehow relates to car sales and MBNA being subsumed into Bank of America. A couple of clueless guys "worked up a little song." If they're not mortified with their lack of good taste, I'll be mortified for them. Absolutely stunning.

Election Day Dance of Relief

It's November 7, 2006. We've been surrounded by hope on the one hand, and on the other, brutal ugliness that would have had my grandad looking for a switch.

Politicians, by nature, have abundant egos. They invest so much in these campaigns, and their everything (or so they think) rides on getting the most votes.

Their desperation means increasingly "creative" methods of slandering an opponent with ridiculous distortions, outright lies, selective and dubious "facts," and a kind of moral absolutism that is nothing but un-thinking. The worst deliberately appeal to the darkest, most ignorant, reptilian vestiges in the human brain. And, too often it works.

Still, voting is all we've got unless you're a lobbyist, and I'm sure you're not. It's the single most patriotic thing we can do. Flags, yellow ribbons, "God Bless America," and country songs are nothing but faint echoes of the real deal.

So, gentle readers, I know you've voted today, because you're that way. In case you know someone who might not bother, bother them till they do.

This might not restore your faith in humanity, but its beauty encouraged me.




The Boddisatva Dance of the Thousand Hands

Tractors, Advertising and Friends

My status has risen exponentially with my nephew, Andrew. He loves him a good tractor and has an encyclopedic knowledge of all manner of farm implements.

This is apropos as Cambium Creative has recently added a good-sized tractor account to our portfolio, thanks to our old buddy, Michael Turley, another alumnus from Osborn & Barr. Michael is Montana Tractor's new Communications Director, which is our first indication of this company's innate good sense.

Michael's one account guy who's a creative team's dream. Unlike too many account people whose primary purpose is to quash any idea that's remotely interesting. Michael knows great creative when he sees it. That means work that will actually, well, work.

If you had to use one word to describe this company, it's authentic. Buy a tractor and get a thank-you note directly from the CEO. Folks actually answer their own phones. No voice mail. No filters. Real people doing good business.

In short, they're the kind of client worth putting your heart and soul into.

We know from tractors, but there's always the "unknown unknowns." We're not above the most complimentary kind of larceny, so consider yourself invited to tell us anything you might know about reaching the 5-acre tractor buyer.

And Andrew, consider yourself Cambium Creative's newest marketing consultant. Not everyone has a lifelong love of tractors, or an eight-year-old's passion. You're my ace in the hole, buddy.

"Note to Future Despairing Self" by Dr. Charles

I have nothing to add except admiration and awe. The Examining Room of Dr. Charles.

You once looked under a microscope at the spindly cells of cancer, with their dark and jagged nuclei, and thought to yourself how poetic, these living things killed by their own quest for immortality.

You passed an entire day on a beach in the Caribbean. Your eyes couldn't quite capture the totality of the scene - the lush green mountains, the tropical forest swaying lazily with the sultry ocean breeze, the eight squid that rode the underwater current with you, their eyes behind tentacles, their bodies propelled by some translucent undulation. It was like floating with intelligence from another planet.

You lived many lifetimes within the one.

The boy that blackened your face, the woman that humiliated you as a doctor, they were but a squawking distraction.

The rain on the sheet metal roof. The brilliant stitch of a meteor in the dissolving night sky. The smell of jasmine on the streets of Sevilla or within the rising steam from a cup of tea. The warm dog licking your face. The minor notes of Chopin from the piano. A plate of cheese, onion, and saltines, with Light and Dark ale at McSorley's.

And above all these were the good people. The friends that danced like stones skipping on water, the family who loved you, who loved you, and the girl who promised to carry your heart (i carry it in my heart).

For along the way you learned that love is greatest.

It runs deeply, silently, as an underground spring whose waters are pure, nurturing, and ever present beneath our daily concerns. It is a tie stronger than life, proven by our own existence. We exist as living incarnations of a love which preceded us. We are sustained by that love. And when we share it with others we can perhaps feel the face of eternity shining down upon us.

So know just this - you did enjoy the world. You were carried by an army of cells, risen from the sea, and all who crossed your path were brothers and sisters.

You'll dissolve into that night sky, you'll rise fragrant from the petals of jasmine, Chopin will break through your very substance, and the Light and the Dark will pour you smoothly, bitterly, beautifully into the belly of creation.

Governmental Travesty in Missouri

Jonathan and I have been deeply involved in a local campaign for state house rep. We're trying to unseat the current rep whose only successful legislation has been to name the chanterelle "Missouri's Official State Mushroom."

By all that is holy, how can that be? I've walked in the woods mushroom hunting since I was a kid, looking for this magical sight:


photo via pfly on flickr

Furthermore, I've lived in Missouri my entire life, majored in horticulture at one point, and still, I wouldn't know a chanterelle if it sliced itself up under a flashing neon grocery sign and sang "Blue Suede Shoes." But I've hiked for hours, with a cranky toddler, a migraine and a stone bruise, for a plate of morels.

I am not alone. From The Missourian:

… three mushroom-hunting legislators on the Tourism Committee questioned the proposal, which was expected to be noncontroversial. “To make this the state mushroom when everyone in this room has heard of the morel would be a travesty,” said Rep. J.C. Kuessner, D-Eminence. “I just can’t believe that we’d do something like that to our public citizens of the state of Missouri.”

It was a travesty, and I, too, can't believe what's been done to the public citizens of the state of Missouri. With life and times as they are, the travesty is that anyone had time for any of this nonsense.

Important things are at stake. Be sure to vote Tuesday.

The Cure to Unhappiness

I know something about depression. I won't go into it, but it's been a companion often enough that I recognize its voice immediately. Dilbert cures all. Exercise, eat protein, drink water, be happy.

I wouldn't mind putting the pharmaceutical companies into Chapter 11 with such a simple cure for depresion.

Don't kill me softly, do it hard, or don't bother

Two things that consistently kill creativity. Succinct, and oh so true. Fear is the enemy, and what Seth Godin calls a lack of imagination.

Imagination is part of who we are, and fear is, too. But we are too often stamped down, turned down, discouraged, and made fun of for imagination. It takes courage to use your imagination past the age of eight.

Using imagination has inherent risks. Sometimes you will go too far. Be what some call "inappropriate." Other times, you'll have the room in your palm. It's about having the courage to fail, because with that in hand, you can give yourself permission to take the risks that make for greatness.

It's been said elsewhere, but if a client isn't uncomfortable with the work they're seeing, they're not seeing good work. Work that will work.

One of the most courageous work I ever did was a jewel in my tiara. From somewhere, I got the guts to write a totally avant garde, stream of consciousness poem moonlighting as an ad. It was for an art fair program in one of St. Louis' toniest suburbs. But it was such a hit, that it ran two years. Ad folks either love it or hate it. That better than a sock drawer full of awards. Kathy Sierra will back me up on that.

To see it up close, click on the image you'll find here.

White people dancing

that's how we do, originally uploaded by Word Maven.

This has nothing to do with anything other than I gave birth to the guy making the white-guy-dancing face. Couldn't be prouder. We're not a funky family, though we wish we were.

We're not stuck with what we've got-aha!

Life coaches sounds so, well, phony. Then I ran across Life Coaches Blog. We all have things we'd like to change. We all want to help people effectively. We all want to be the best person we can be, and the hurdles on the way can be arduous. Check it out.

"Without dreams, without risks, only a trivial semblance of living can be achieved."
--Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Borat, from the interviewee's perspective

Not all are as duped as they may appear. I have new hope and will manage to get up in the morning after all.

Borat Reveals Seamy Underside of Greatest Nation on Earth

People are so, well, human.

Exhibit A: Borat. A character created by Sacha Baron Cohen, complete with awe-inspiring mustache, has gone from sea-to-shining-sea posing as a "journalist" from Kazakhstan. (He's got an HBO show titled after another character, Ali G, an English hip-hop doing the same schtick.)

Borat is unbelievably crude. An over-the-top anti-Semitic. Offensive to any civilized person. There's too good to be true, and then there's too bad to be true. But, Borat has traveled the U.S. talking to real Americans. People who took him seriously.

There was one bit with a couple good ol' boy wine tasters in the South. Cohen managed to get one of them to say out loud that he lamented the end of slavery. And then, there was a performance of "In My Country There Is Problem," a song so awful, so disgraceful, so stupid, that no one would . . . but they did. The whole bar sang the chorus of "throw the Jew down the well."

I mourn for my country. Dumb as a dirty box full of rocks.

Here are the first four minutes of his feature film, Borat. NSFW, be warned, but geez, it sums up a character no one would take seriously. The schtick is too thick, the irony palpable. They do, though. And not just here. The government of Kazakhstan has waged a complaint against Borat.



And so it goes. Gullibility is one thing, but joining in this kind of stuff doesn't come from nowhere. Mel Gibson?

Mediocrity Can Be Cured

It's been a while since I've blogged about Kathy Sierra and her stellar blog, Creating Passionate Users, and it hasn't been because she's fallen off, not one little bit.

This piece explains how to achieve, or not achieve, according to discretion, mediocrity. Go away from this place and visit Kathy. To quote Dan Rather, "Courage."

Honesty in Advertising : an Oxymoron or Best Practices?

WARNING: Especially long post, especially important, pack a lunch if need be.

Honesty is an alien concept to many. Just as good as I need to be is the motto. So this post on honesty (I come out for it), I'm heading with the most honestly weird photoshop montage I've ever done.

Here's the real deal. The best advertising technique is to tell the truth. The best business advantage goes to those who take ethics seriously. The best stories about people show them as they really are, warts and all. We all love a bit of a wart on an otherwise perfect person. Tell it. Make it real.

We've seen enough slimey practices in the seats of power to convince anyone that crime may pay quite well, it won't pay for much in the pen.

If you already know this, skip right to Shel Horowitz's inspiring and validating Business Ethics Pledge. Savor it, sign it and share it.

Your better revolutions have a generous supply of indisputable truth that gets superglued to your brain quite pleasantly, you feel a lot better about yourself, then you pull others along with the glue, who bring others still. It takes on a life of its own. And it begins to change the world. One good brain to another, an exponential spread, and Shel Horowitz may well take over the world one solemn vow of ethics and honor at a time. Huzzah, Shel.

Ethics certainly isn't only a concern to ad folks, this pledge is greatly needed in government, big business, manufacturing, making cars, lightbulbs and Twizzlers. Ethical business practices is a universally applicable concept, a universally successful practice and it applies to every job at every level.

I know the ad biz, and how easy it is to use some ill-fitting verbal vavoom to add pizzazz to a lackluster product. Just a bit of overstatement--that's not so bad. But like anything built on horse dung, it isn't going to work.

An honest, creative alternative might be to be absolutely up front with how boring your product is. It does a couple things, so that's all right. But it's wrapped in kraft paper with black ink. Antiquated hints for the garden a la Farmer's Almanac, cleaning tips by Miss Cleidofern, it's boringness becomes its beacon. The truth wins. It gains a bit of camp sachet along with it, sales explode. When the truth is the only thing people buy (more than once), it's the only thing you've got to sell.

The least-respected, best-paid form of advertising is direct marketing. That crowd has every semicolon down to a scientific variable that increases or decreases response. If you realized how much went into the stuff you throw away every day, you might move to Zanzibar without a forwarding address. It's easily the most manipulative subgenre of advertising there is. What they lack in elegance, they make up with hard, cold statistics.

The idea is that if you get them inside the envelope, then they'll read your killer copy and convert. I did a letter package that got enormous results (and an Arrow Award). It beguiled the reader with a million ways of saying money, i.e.,"wampum, greenbacks, filthy lucre, coin of the realm, legal tender," etc. The real money cardholders get? A paltry refund of the total money they'd charge every year. WhooHoo! $12.00 American, once a year--alert the media!

What do you do when the product you're asked to sell is dangerous to small children, kittens and Aunt Bee? You quit. Some things cannot be gotten around, and endangering humanity is at the top. I gave up my biggest client. In return, I slept better knowing I wasn't furthering the sale of a fatal poison. Now found in groundwater all over Southern Illinois (and pretty much all over), where crops are routinely sprayed with chemical cocktails of seven, ten, 14 different products, including atrazine. Atrazine lurks silently in every well, draining into every river, until Sister finds a lump, or Joe gets a brain tumor. It's legal. It's effective. It's where I drew the line. Hope you never have to. It hurt, but it hurt good, if you know what I mean.


Talking to clients? Tell the truth. If you don't, you will have to confess on Sunday, and you won't give the client the benefit of your years of experience (the only thing you have to sell, after all). And, they're not going to be as successful as if they'd taken your counsel. Clients may bristle, but handled gently, they can be brought around to your way of thinking, because it's based on experience hard won. That's why you're being paid. Don't cower before a client apologetically, mincing words, allowing the very soul of your work be deleted to assuage unknown fears. Tell her the difficult truth. If she's worthy of her job, she'll see the light and you'll become the agency that made her look fabulous. The truth is so rare, but it absolutely delivers the very best results.

Shel brings it home how broad a swath an ethical business MO could make across all kinds of concerns:

• Businesses are more likely to succeed when they base themselves in ethics: honesty, integrity, and quality.
• Businesses must look at the "triple bottom line": financial, environmental, and social impacts [emphasis mine] (and this will require major pressure: currently, US public corporations are required by law to focus only on the economic bottom line, to the exclusion of other objectives and stakeholders)
• Amazing things can happen when all stakeholders (employees, customers, suppliers, neighborhood residents, even competitors) become your active champions-but that only happens if your business specifically empowers each of these groups and addresses their different needs and desires
• Line employees, managers, and even CEOs need support to show that ethical principles will help their businesses succeed, and that they won't be penalized by the marketplace for taking an ethical stand

Here's Shel's goal:

Eventually, this movement will reach critical mass. And some crooked "entrepreneur" will come along and try to cheat employees and customers while leaving a big, expensive mess for the public to clean up. But that crooked business owner won't find the people who will carry out this dirty work. Instead, good people will stand up for what's right, for ethics, for justice, and for honoring the company's real mission, not only because it's the right thing to do, but because they understand that it works better.

Free advice: cultivate a few good honor stories. Tell 'em to your kids. They'll become family lore and their internal compass. I know, I had a few myself. I'll post some later, but now, I have the best sum-it-up quote I'm likely to find today:

My favorite Doc:

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. --Dr. Suess

Go HERE:

Shel Horowitz's inspiring and validating Business Ethics Pledge

Sign it today and send to as many as you think have ears to hear, probably the unindicted, but you be the judge.