27 THINGS I BELIEVE

    A few years back I came across a document by Tom Peters.

It was kind of a tombstone to commemorate his 60th birthday.

I liked the idea of articulating all of those unspoken lessons and non-religious ‘beliefs’ we kinda collect in the guise of ‘experience’. This is my humble list.
Hopefully it’s just a start.

 
1. The only people that like looking at advertising are advertising people. “We’ll be right back after this message from our sponsor…” Marketing is an interruption. It interrupts your favourite TV show, the magazine you’re browsing, the e-mail you’re reading, the recipe you’re trying to read online…and yes, it even gets in the way of those important bills in your letterbox. So let’s not delude ourselves that our livelihood is anticipated, appreciated, or even welcomed. It’s not. 2. Your ‘competitive offer’ probably isn’t. • Parity offers on parity products. Matching your competitor’s offer doesn’t make it competitive. Those little calculators in our heads have been honed to sniff out true value. Rather than leave money on the table, invest it back into making your parity product or service distinctly better and unmatchable. 3. Timing is everything. • You may not be pregnant. You may not have an 8 year old car with a dead transmission. You may not have dirty hardwood floors. You may not be balding. But someone is, and getting your product message to them when they are most inclined to heed it is pure gold. How? The answer is always in the data. You just have to find it. 4. Clarity. Clarity. Clarity. • If advertising is an unwanted interruption, then the sales pitch better be clear, legible and relevant. What do you want me to do? Why should I? 5. Creative is difference. But it’s not the only thing that will make the difference. • A creative idea will help your advertising stand out and get noticed…for a few seconds. But it’s up to the offer and product features to actually help make a sale. 6. Measure twice, cut once. And use metric, damn it. • 7/8th of an inch? Try telling that to a page layout program. Too many pallets of paper have been diverted to landfill because of typos, mismeasurement and misunderstanding: 6 x 9 or 9 x 6 or 5 7/8th by 9? 7. Brand isn’t a mythology…it’s a foot in the door. • Everyone's got an opinion about branding. Which is appropriate, because that's what it's all about. Your brand is what people think about your company. This opinion (or reputation) is polished or tarnished by pretty much everything you do, big or small. From your company's latest ad campaign to the paper quality of your business cards. It’s a quick summary of what you stand for…and if it’s well managed, it’s a good start for your sales process. 8. Not enough people use ellipses. • … is the grammatical equivalent of comic timing. It’s the pause-for-effect before the punchline. And it’s a great way to add emphasis by mimicking speech patterns. 9. Long copy is only long if it’s bad. • Clients want less copy. Art directors want less copy. Only lawyers and the French want more copy. Well written copy seduces you into the next line, quietly luring you onto the next paragraph, from letter to buckslip to brochure. Bad copy has you yawning and blinking at ‘Dear John Sample’. 10. E-mail is dangerously emotionless. • If you’re going to disagree with someone, simply use your voice, not your keyboard. :) simply can’t replace a real smile. 11. Beware trophy cabinets. • Award show hardware is no indication of the profitability of an agency’s ideas. Some of the most effective campaigns (sales, sales, sales) never see the glow of an awards-show spotlight. 12. When searching for an agency, hire the people, not the logo on the door. • If the assets walk out the door every night, why hire the sign on the door? An agency’s braintrust is what matters most. A better RFP process is one that uncovers how the people who would work on your business actually think. 13. Proof > promise. • Proof, data and results are always greater than the promise of success. In an industry highly skilled at make-believe, it pays to dig deeper and demand hardcore proof of talent. 14. Allow for bad days. • Everybody gets them sometime. It could be the traffic, last night’s cheeseburger, a lousy personal decision, or nature. The point is, we’re all fallible. And that’s excusable. 15. Writers: serif. Art directors: sans serif. • Text as content or text as graphic element, hmmm…the eternal debate rages on. Competing academic studies claim legibility victories for the sans and serif camps, but no scientific consensus has arisen. Until then, sans serif wins! 16. Energy, volume and colour are great distractors. • A passionate speaker can say just about anything and often be compelling. Even Milli Vanilli sound good at volume 11. When in design doubt, punch everything up by using red, black and white – the ultimate colour contrasts. 17. Good designers are all about symmetry, great designers are all about asymmetry. • Surprisingly, paper can radiate extraordinary amounts of ‘visual’ energy. To calm: balance objects together with symmetry and harmony. To jolt: contrast, jut unexpected angles, kilter compositions and delicately misalign objects. It’s easy to click ‘Centre’, it’s infinitely harder to create intentional chaos. Only the best designers understand this. 18. There’s always good data somewhere. Find it. Use it. • It might be hidden in a spreadsheet, on a server, or in a file cabinet in the basement. But somewhere, there’s more information than you have right now. Buying patterns, demographics, customer survey responses, rejection rates and more. And that shy data could be holding just that special insight you need to make the next campaign more perceptive and more effective. Hunt it down and set the data free. 19. Sometimes, “because” is the best answer you’ll have….because that’s the only way to describe a gut instinct. • Not everything can be explained rationally. Which is just when that intangible attribute called ‘Trust’ comes in very handy. 20. A good idea doesn’t simply arrive, it percolates. • There are a million ideas floating within our biosphere. Sifting through the crap to find that right spark of insight takes more time and concentration than you may imagine. Hours of rewriting and pixel pushing. And the real truth is that the longer the search, the better the idea. 21. We sleep on ideas to squeeze the excess air out of them. • In the heat of the brainstorming moment, every idea is a world-changer. It’s only the next day that the prince devolves into a toad. It’s also why the 11th draft of copy is tighter, lighter and ‘righter’ than the first. 22. It’s not art, it’s camouflaged commerce. • There’s a reason the phrase is ‘starving artists’ and not ‘starving gallery owners’. 23. E-mail marketing is only spam if it’s irrelevant to me. • If I was a lonely 300lb. midget with thinning hair and a thing for farm animals, and in need of some free software, stock tips and cheap drugs, I’d love getting all that helpful e-mail. 24. Use the most expensive paper stock you can afford. • You gotta dress for success. And nothing says loser like a ream of 16 lb. hi-gloss bond paper. Good quality stock shows that you actually assign value to your message…and your customer. 25. Creative Briefs without conversation aren’t worth the toner. • Too often there’s a brittle wall between Account Service (they who understand the client) and Creative (they who draw all day). Conversation dissolves the wall and brings a project to life in so many deliciously unanticipated ways. 26. Americans still lose $5 billion a year to Nigerian spam scams. And it’s all copywriting. • It’s a tragically wonderful affirmation of the power of copywriting. Even though it’s often in stilted English, these treacherous words somehow convince millions of generous souls to part with their savings every year. No ink, paper, design or infomercial required. 27. A single selling proposition is the rarest of jewels. • The more focused a beam of light, the more it illuminates the objective. Front.html
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